CURRENT TENDENCIES IN CONTEMPORARY MONTENEGRIN ART

Gallery of the State Archive in Rijeka, December 2011 – January 2012

By: Anita Kojundžić

Whenever there is collaboration between the former Yugoslav republics, all of which are independent states today, it is hard to avoid mentioning the past and the roles some of the republics played. However, despite the differences in secession procedure, it is undeniable there are many similarities in the ongoing processes, as well as issues the young countries are facing.  

As an attempt to redefine interstate relations and reconstruct collaboration, Rijeka held an exhibition of new Montenegrin graphic works, created between 1971 and 2011. Selected by Ljiljana Zeković, there were 14 artists of different generation, from the recently deceased Miodrag Dado Đurić (1933-2010), then members of the older generation such as Anka Burić, Dimitrije Popoviće, Mirko Toljić and Veljo Stanišić, mid-generation Ozana Brković, Admir Bambur, Irena Lagator Pejović and Igor Rakčević, to the young artists, such as Ilija Nikčevića, Jelena Jovančov, Zorica Lakić, Milena Živković and Maja Mirković. This is how almost half a century of Montenegrin graphic art has been encompassed, which had its real boom in 1988, after the Department for Graphic Art was open at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje, where most of the artists have been educated.

Stylistically, aesthetically and conceptually, the works vary in range from fantastical to surrealist, poetic, symbolic to iconic, from figurative, abstract to minimalist, achieved through classic techniques, as well as in new media of combined technique and computer graphics. If we were to look for common links, especially between the works created in the past 20 years and their relation to the experience of newly established independence, social changes that followed and identity issues, we would only find traces of them, perhaps in the bleak atmosphere. These are still intimate artistic experiments in the graphic medium, rather than engaged and critical attitudes towards particular phenomena and issues of modern society. As an exception, I would point out Irena Lagator Pejović and Admir Bambur.

Irena Lagator Pejović (1976), one of the most presented artists in the region, has two works under the name “Society of peaceful cohabitation” (2011). These are litographs that look like polka-dotted paper, but on closer inspection, you can see there are endless rows of human-like pictograms that create a vast “mass of people”, each of them existing in the immediate vicinity of the others, but completely isolated. Reducing drawing to a miniature scheme, deprived on any individual story, the author uses the title as the key to finding possible meaning, which is her habitual practice, particularly in her socially engaged works. These are graphic reflections of modern topics which the author has explored for years, mainly through performance and video: the issue of false stability in transition states by loaning money from foreign resources (“BBBeauty”, 2003); the issue of waste management and environment (“Temporary Dumping Place”, 2004); the relation between material security and happiness (“Are You Happy Now?”, 2004); the complexity of connections between art, economy, law and society (“Society of Limited Responsibilities”, 2006-2010). One of her most famous works is “After Memory” (2007), a bundle of 1800 dinar banknotes bound in a book, where money loses its value as currency, but gains another one as a piece of art, which is another contribution by the artist to the analysis of art and economy in late capitalism. However, by choosing the 200 dinar note with the portrait of the real, not allegorical figure, of the woman artist Nadežda Petrović, meant rewarding her with a new dimension of public recognition, opening the question of national identity, memory and the past. Finally, the independent national currency in the context of eurofication is also one of the essential elements in defining past, present and future identity, so it is not surprising that very idea found its place in the work of the following artist as well.

Admir Bambur (1976) also has a litograph, entitled “Corset” (2009), a continuation of his graphic series “Eros is our money.” Taking the basic norms of what a banknote looks like (relationship image-text, serial number, etc.), he adds his own fantasy and interpretation of symbolic meaning: sexual allusions, naked female body combined with decorative elements similar to calligraphy, organic abstraction and letters from different world cultures. With intervention in the banknotes of different currencies, linking erotica and money, he deconstructs the patriarchal symbols of power, while also reminding us of the differences that tend to be overcome and subdued, mostly unsuccessfully, with the introduction of the euro, for instance. In the world of credit cards, the banknote has a symbolic meaning now more than ever before, in the construction of national identity and its survival. Unlike Lagator’s, they are ready-made objects of sort; Bambur’s notes are utterly imaginary, expressive and decorative, at the same time. They affirm and dilute the fascination with sexuality and money as two most exploited goods in capitalist society. Bambur’s notes are a simulation, because they never existed as such, although they seem like the used, worn out notes, toying with our assumptions, prejudice and attitudes. The artist freely and creatively connects different cultures, letters and languages, putting together symbols for an attractive allegory, creating an almost idealised world where anything is possible.

How much information can this exhibition provide on contemporary Montenegrin art? Without extra involvement and research, I have to say, very little. It suggests the graphic medium is extremely popular, with dominant escapist tendencies and a small number of socially engaged art. The curator’s concept of an overview of art, with cultural and political background, has an obvious problem due to an insufficiently expressive interpretation and contextualisation. Selecting different generations leads to simplification, regarding the range of topics and styles, as well as social and historical context of the works. In this way, there is a relatively superficial insight in the Montenegrin art scene, so the question of why the show was organised in the first place is a legitimate one. It appears to be an act of neighbourly political correctness, confirmed by setting up the exhibition in a conservative cultural institution such as the State Archive.