Wednesday 28th September 2016When you've had a career that spans almost 50 years, it's only natural to be completely fascinated by the technological developments that you've seen over the course of your lifetime. As in the case of Serbian artist Dragan Ilic, that fascination can lead to some pretty interesting results.
Those readers of a comparable age to Mr. Ilic will have no difficulty understanding this fascination, but for those younger readers who have grown up with the internet, it probably bears pointing out that his first solo exhibit was in 1975, well before the existence of the internet and definitely before the age of ubiquitous robotic manufacturing. So try to view his latest work with the full scope of that appreciation.
As Ilic explains in his global artist statement, "The starting point in my work is conceptual analysis and de/reconstruction of the process of drawing as inscription of bodily activities on paper and opening the space for communication of ideas or realization of specific artistic intentions."
So, without further ado, here's an animated GIF of Ilic at work with one of his most recent projects, DI-2K4.
Later on in his statement, he argues, "realization and excitement felt as a result of inclusion of various auxiliary tools into the process of work, whether pencils as basic „artistic tools“ or various multifunctional technological pieces of equipment which have become an integral part of my work – have confirmed the decision to build my own artistic expression at an interaction between the body and the machine, the natural and the constructed, the intimate and the structural and the physical, symbolical and imaginary space."
Aside from being an impressive sentence - yes, that was one sentence - you can't deny that he can write one hell of an artist statement. Whether or not you accept what he has to say about the nature of his artistic practice is naturally up to you, but this writer is definitely a fan of his latest ongoing work, which is entitled 'PEOPLE I DON'T LIKE', and recently has added a continuation based around installations at seven sites across the United States where he'll be performing/creating site-specific symbolic portraits.
One wonders if he ever gets too dizzy to continue, or if he simply really enjoys this process at a basic physical level. Perhaps there's truth to the saying that we always suffer for our art.
Posted on September 28th 2016 on 08:36pm
