Photo: Promo
Ten large-format paintings that were chosen for the exhibition in the Modern Gallery, Belgrade, languished in the basement for 40 years, rolled up like carpets.
Ten large-format paintings by Milovan Destil Marković have been exhibited since last month in the Belgrade Modern Gallery. For the previous 40 years, rolled up like a carpet, they languished in the basement and, as he told the media, he is now seeing them for the first time after so many years.
Modern Gallery Belgrade decided to show Destil's oeuvre of the eighties, paintings from the cycle "Gate of Harmony" and "Eucharist".
Destil is one of the few iconic names in local art, so the opportunity to see part of his work is the first reason why this exhibition is important. The second is a story about the 1980s in Belgrade, in which Destil Marković played a major role.
About the artist, just a few obligatory words: he is the protagonist of the spirit of the new wave, he is one of the pioneers of new painting in Serbia and Yugoslavia, he invented the concept of Transfigural painting, he is part of the gallery of the Student Cultural Center at the time when it was the center of the world, together with Vlastimir Mikić he organized artistic duo "Žestoki" and founded the cult Belgrade club "Akademija", he began to study icons and fresco painting of Serbian-Byzantine medieval monuments, which will significantly reflect on his understanding of art. He has been living in Berlin since 1986.
The title of Danijela Purešević's text (in addition to her, Ješa Denegra also writes about Destil in the exhibition catalog) "Before and after the Eucharist" emphasizes what was the turning point in Destil Marković's oeuvre. It was held at the beginning of 1985 in the Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade and is considered one of the most important in the art of the eighties.
"The scenic, ambient whole, with an undertone of the sacred, dominated by images, with performative elements, represented the sum and crown of all his previous searches and experiences." Here he unites the matrices of Byzantine spirituality and iconography, with the rebellion, ferocity and charge of rock and roll. It reconciles youthful euphoria and one's own deep intuition," wrote Danijela Purešević.
"Relying on the Cyrillic alphabet and alchemical signs and symbols, he defines his own, hermetic script, understandable only to him, with which he creates records on canvases." Marković addresses the Middle Ages from the position of a modern, media-conscious and educated individual. Deprived of religious motivations, he builds environments with a religious/mystical/esoteric flavor, in a time and place where the pentacle still existed as a dominant ideological sign."
The Cyrillic alphabet and interest in icon painting became part of his paintings after his stay in the colony "Sopočanska viđenja". He began to work on a picture in space, a picture that was broken, torn apart, rejoined in a kind of assemblage.
"That's when I discovered fresco painting for the first time, I observed it closely and since I wasn't religious even then, I was intrigued by that performance, that inverted perspective and fresco painting in general." I was researching that field at a time when none of the artists were doing it on stage because there was no in. I explored that inverted perspective, I was one of the first to combine contemporary painting with Byzantine art in a minimal way, and conceptual art," he told "Danas".
His manifesto exhibition, as evaluated by Danijela Purešević, was "Fragments of the Image" at the SKC in 1982. "The image is deconstructed, split, ambientized - its space expands to the entire volume of the gallery, treating it as a sacred space, as a temple." However, this disobeying the form, Destil told the Nova.rs portal, his professor did not like it.
"I was in Zoran Petrović's class and he couldn't tell how good I was, he loved me, almost adopted me. But, for me, the film broke, I was not satisfied with the shape, the square of the picture, and I started tearing them. I was the only one in my class who started tearing the framed picture, deconstructing it. Rebellion occurred, and I began to collage the works, paper on paper and by tearing them together again. I was annoyed by that established way of painting. At that time, the Academy was very conservative, they adhered to the French school of painting. But that was not relevant for me. I was about twenty years old, listening to punk and new wave, and I wanted to paint hay in meadows or a pastoral idyll," says Marković.
When he brought the professor to the exhibition at SKC, "I disappointed him and he didn't want to sign me. Then I went to Stojan Ćelić's class, because he was more modern, more open, and I finished my studies with him."
The exhibition in the Belgrade Modern Gallery is open until November 7.
S.Ć./Danas/Nova.rs
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