"I see her as a beast that broke free from my chain, so from the other side she growls and from this side I howl... She taught me to take care, to stay away from greed, not to reward and praise me because it would put me to sleep..."!
Nothing better than these words by academic painter Dejan Mirković explains his impressive work, in whose honor a retrospective exhibition entitled "Guardian of the Soul of Graphics" was opened last night at the Montenegrin Art Gallery "Miodrag Dado Đurić" in Cetinje, organized by the National Museum. In the presence of a large number of Mirković's colleagues, friends, and art lovers, around a hundred works from all phases of Mirković's creativity and research were presented, which are only a small part of his total oeuvre.
"What made him unique, and in a way a loner, was his lack of communication with the audience and his avoidance of expert judgments about his work. For Dejan Mirković, it was more important to address the press, with whom he communicated as if he were a living being, in his notes from the studio," said the art historian at the opening of the exhibition. Ljiljana Zeković .
The exhibition organizer and publisher of the catalog is the National Museum of Montenegro. Its creative team, which included Slobodan Vušurović, Jovo Petričević i Ratko Odalović, with assistance Vesna Bokan Mirkovic, Dejan's wives, presented an extraordinary artistic experience.
The inspiring space of the gallery that bears Dado's name has been used in the right way to present part of Mirković's creativity, but also to illuminate the atmosphere and spirit in which he moved and worked. So that visitors, in addition to the prints, can also see a "replica" of his studio, press, tools and everything he used in his work and creative process.
On the walls of the gallery, between the works, some of the thoughts and messages of the great graphic artist are also woven. “It is not easy to recognize the world of diversity that I carry within me, but the imagination of which I am an obedient child is increasingly seeking – and I, sweetly caught in its circle, make collages of art from it,” Mirković once said.
“The retrospective exhibition and accompanying monographic publication, which has yet to be published, represent an opportunity for the Montenegrin audience to experience in full the work of Dejan Mirković – an authentic artist, a born graphic artist, a master of his craft, who lived art with passion and dedication. His work remains as a testimony to the inexhaustible possibilities of graphic expression and a quiet, but powerful presence in the history of contemporary Montenegrin art,” said Ljiljana Zeković, opening the exhibition. She concluded that for Mirković, graphics were not just a visual technique of expression, “but a space of personal freedom, an intimate world in which emotions, memories and imagination intertwined.”
In a similar way, but from a different, private angle, his childhood friend Dragan Marković spoke about Mirković, noting that "Dejan viewed life from a different perspective, from which he disregarded all the scruples by which the rest of the world, including those around him, lived."
"There are deep reasons for this: his creative personality, the circumstances in which he grew up, and probably our genes," Marković concluded.
Dejan Mirković was born in Cetinje in 1957. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 1989, in the class of prof. Boško KaranovićHe studied at Moscow State University (1997/99) and in Paris (1990). He briefly worked as a teacher at the “Petar Lubarda” Secondary School in Cetinje. He was a member of the ULUCG since 1990 and a member of the art group “Ključ”.
He exhibited individually at about 20 exhibitions in Montenegro and Serbia and at numerous group exhibitions in the country and abroad, including the 17th International Biennial of Graphics in Sarcelles. He participated in several art colonies. He worked as an independent artist in Cetinje and Podgorica. He died in Podgorica in 2023.
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