"That history originates from China and tells the story of an old painter who showed his friends his latest painting. It showed a park and a path that led along the river, passing through a grove and ending in front of a gate behind which was a house. But when the friends looked back for the painter, this was not there: he was in the picture. There, he walked along the narrow path to the gate, stopped in front of her quietly, turned around, smiled and disappeared behind her lap," he says. Walter Benjamin.
Montenegrin artist, Stefan Todorovic, for "Vijesti" points out that this quote is illustrative in the sense of erasing the border between the work of art and the observer "which is a beautiful thesis" that he wants to devote himself to, especially when he works on the exhibition setting.
A brief description of the painter who becomes the hero of his own painting can be found in the catalog of Todorović's independent exhibition "Concrete", which was opened in the Art Pavilion of the Association of Fine Artists of Montenegro (ULUCG). It will be available to visitors until December 4.
Todorović says that Benjamin is a philosopher from the beginning of the 20th century who greatly influenced the theory of art and the development of thought of that era.
"He often used and emphasized that quote in his works. He talks about a Chinese painter who got lost in his painting from which he greeted his friends and disappeared," describes the artist.
He wants to introduce people to his art through the way he sets things up, "even some games." Thus, figures of apples and peaches could be noticed near the walls, about which the artist says that he orients himself to things he "only recognizes", which can be motifs.
"It's something I found this summer as props for a play. They seemed so banal to me - like something that would never attract or inspire you - that I used them for my work. Then I put them in the setting, purely to somehow 'refresh' or refresh the perception of someone who is doing a tour of the gallery, so that they can look at the paintings in a different way - so that everything is not dry and oriented towards what is on the wall". the painter points out.
In addition to that moment in which the observer becomes part of the observed, Todorović in the artistic attitude of the exhibition catalog points out that his work seeks to understand through art the power of transforming everyday experiences into universal stories. Thus, he explains to "Vijesti" that he chose the name "Concrete" because it "associates to the nuclear environment, to our daily life, to the way we move, feel..."
"I was looking for something that was simple, sonorous, not necessarily related to my work, but in some sense gives me some context," says Todorović.
He states that concrete contrasts something that he likes to insist on in his work - "it's layering, a kind of sensuality".
"Concrete is an extremely simple material and it can be said that it is in some way a planned provocation - provocation is a harsh word - stunt", adds the artist.
In addition to concrete as a material that takes place as the symbolic title of the exhibition, Todorović draws inspiration from recycled materials in his work.
"I recognize traces of time in them. I am a generation that was marked by a period of crisis, transition, something that sounds temporary, but lasts forever. It's the 'status quo' that you live all the time and it physically shapes you as an individual in a way. You get lost in it - a kind of society that is not directed towards a certain goal, but is frozen. The same deformation occurs on those discarded objects and is painted," he explains.
He says that these topics - construction and dismantling, durability and change, entropy - are permanent topics.
"It is something simply unstoppable and as long as you have a realistic approach, you cannot avoid these topics. I try to have such an approach that will make him notice something concrete that is happening around us and between us. That will always remain the focus of my work," Todorović points out.
Achieving this approach through his works, he balances abstraction and recognition, and in this he is "mainly guided by intuition and the way of deconstructing the creative idea" he has.
"I am questioning it, and in that questioning, the process is pulling itself towards abstraction. If I start from something concrete, I try to deconstruct that motif and then it's some natural path that I find on something that would be - abstraction is the right term - more abstract than the rest or less recognizable", explains Todorović.
Also, in order to "translate things into a symbolic meaning or play with the symbolic meaning by placing it in another context" he uses mythology. At the exhibition, you can see paintings that explicitly express mythological symbolism in their titles: "Flight of Icarus", "Dust and Ashes (Venus)", "Self-Portrait and Tree of Life"...
"Relation to mythology is deconstructive - something ordinary, banal, can be viewed as mythological. It's nothing new, it's a Surrealist principle," says the artist.
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