celandine designblog

opake tullumbe (i dalje žele moju smrt) - Marina Marković

A small exhibition showing drawings and watercolors (peppered with puffy lollypop stickers and a doll’s leg or two) by the young Serbian artist Marina Marković opened the other day in one of the galleries of the Belgrade ‘Student City’ complex. Now due to unforeseen and most tragic circumstances I managed to miss the said opening (though I have it on good authority that actual turkish sweets – drowned in sugary syrup – were handed out for general consumption by the gallery visitors), but I dropped by the next day to look at the work.

I liked the line of the drawings, I loved the soft use of watercolors. I generally like the combination of watercolor and pen, it gives that nice soft, washed-out, filmy feel to the drawings… The colors were shades of purple, blue and pink. The motions and expressions were well captured. Visually I’d say the whole thing was interesting. The problems I encountered had more to do with the concept.

Yoshitomo Nara - Harmless Kitty

Funny thing this cross cultural exchange that the global village has brought to us. On the one hand, I’m happy to see Japanese influences in Serbian modern art. On the other, I can’t help but wonder whether we would all manage to squeeze a little more creative individuality out of the depths of our little artistic souls if we weren’t constantly peeking over the fence into other people’s art worlds. Take the evil turkish sweets for instance – the execution might not be identical, but the imagery of cutesy yet cranky children morphing into kitties and bunnies is a very Japanese thing, and they’ve really cornered the market on it, so to speak. We’ve got Yoshitomo Nara and his angry children glaring off the canvas with unsettling stares, Aya Takano with her pasty little pastel nymphs floating knickerless through the urban jungle, Chiho Aoshima’s willowy round-eyed girls morphing with (you got it!) bunnies, foliage and cityscapes. So I’d say that whole kowai/kawaii thing has pretty much been done now.

Chiho Aoshima - City Glow

Of course one of the main points of all the arts is intertextuality. Some of the best works of art are created as a reaction or commentary to great works that came before. The great thing about a real work of art is that it provokes a reaction – a contemplation of a new point of view. This contemplation can produce quality art, without doubt. The problem, however, comes when the contemplation bit is fast-forwarded, or taken out of the equation. When exposed to a work born of a different culture - grown in a different climate, if you will – a young artist can easily flow to the conclusion along the lines of ‘Oooh, that’s pretty! I know – I’ll do that!’ Just make it a little different, and there you go – presto inspiration, presto enlightenment – exhibition halls here we come.

I don’t want to be unfair to murderously evil turkish sweets and imply that the artist’s sentiment is not genuine. But I have to say that the choice of topics – with the possible exception of anorexia which the artist has personal experience with, and is thus rendered an acceptable subject – shows a certain new-age laziness. The treatment of subjects along the lines of McDonalds, Nike, Always and Durex, along with anorexia and bulimia, has in some critical texts been termed ‘a most intimate observation of consumption and consumerism’ - but I would be sorely tempted to brand it with a stamp of ‘lazy thinking’.

From the title of the exhibition, I was hoping that ‘Mean Turkish sweets (still seek my death)’ would present work that would feel more personal.