EXPANDING VISUAL OPTICS

SHIFTING THE POETIC STATEMENT  

 

    Bearing in mind that we are talking about an artist who has an especially profiled creative output, each new exhibition of Djordjije Crncevic is perceived as a special art occasion. He continues to question his skills, which in the context of his early creative awakening had an evident effect. That imperative has continued until his current achievements, regardless of which branch of visual arts he is dealing with. One should keep in mind that beside sculptures, his curiosity is turned towards graphics, drawings and painting. Still, the sculptured form has remained his primary preoccupation, with which he became recognizable, and moreover, his achieved range has made him an unavoidable persona in Serbian contemporary art.

                Crncevic surprises us on this occasion as well by the way he perceives sculpture, actually, he shifts its given quality to another phenomenological level.

                The subject of the shift in expression, in attaining and expanding harmony between the abstract and sculptural shape of the identity, rests on a certain work which was made?. It is based on some early made as well as new small dimension works. On the path of his experience they proved to be appropriate from the aspect of drafts, preparations for a project, often as end works with the attributes of a rounded linguistic language. Perceiving their plastic basis and with the characteristics of rounded forms without any pronounced verticalism, which with noticeable variations in details is inclined towards groupings on any type of projection, vertical or horizontal, Crncevic has perceived the need to combine them into larger wholes. Their grouping, via the transparent defined „walls“ has been raised to a higher level of meaning. Naturally, we are not talking about a simple or superficial piling of finished „units“, but instead of a thought-out, delicate line up according to shapes and materials, (terra-cotta – engoba, coated wood, gypsum) into a unique reality which is thereby embodied into a new aesthetic precedence.

                Although some of the mentioned, hereby segmented and composed units, were previously presented to the public as independent accomplishments, the author has managed to revoke their essence. Lining up and creating larger communities via metal constructions, similar to cages or glass vessels with lead lids on which part of the sculpture rests,   the now object full scene is freed by a sequence of individually suppressed, individual values. One form is supplemented and co-effected by another and other similar characters, wherewith their interior vitality is shifted, set in motion and raised to a new level of meaning, and of course,  established for the benefit of inter-dependant multilayered presented solutions.

                Crncevic’s sculptures have been altered into the fabric of singular substantial optics where nothing was repeated nor is it in any way repeated. As such, they are founded on the complementary manner of diverse assembled forms. In the given theme – motive, the initially envisioned role of individual „factors“ is in some aspects suppressed, converted into a new organism, their meaning has expanded and complemented with another starting point.

                Djordjije Crncevic’s subsequent „projects“ awaken various ingredients as far as the essence of sculpture is concerned. His spatial ambient interventions arouse diverse associations, (in one part storing groceries into jars) which are simultaneously elevated to a certain time and timeless distinction. The past of his sculpture is modernized. In a new, and as such different way it exists in the present. With the given stylistic embodiment Crncevic touches upon the post-modern, conceptual as well as an elevated reflective, almost philosophical constant, which manifests itself through a multi-layered interpretation of a complex coded concept of a shaped mass.   

                The drawings which were presented, together with the sculptures, taken from a rich basis for this occasion, complement the impression of adaptability with a certain signatory expression of established interspaces, which assimilate into an appropriate joint reducibility. A latent connection permeates their joint actions, which gives the impression of a persuasive spiritual energy.

                                                                                                                                                                                              Zdravko Vučinić

Translated by Biljana Ačkovski Petrović

  

 

Compression of Time

  

  The sculptor Djordjije Crncevic has been known on our scene in the past decades for his simple, yet strong sculptural vocabulary which he never abandons. He uses simple forms, giving his full attention and showing respect for the materials from which he creates his sculptures, he does not surrender to them, but instead, he intervenes by adding modest metal applications to stone, seeking harmony or tension in that relation. His limestone sculptures are especially significant which associate us with a homeland reflex of the Montenegrin landscape, which he composes as special sculptural architectonics. His formations, starting from figuration during the 60’s, via modular sculptures (Solzhenitsy’s portraits in plaster), brought together the various phases and possibilities of his sculptural expression in which, regardless of all changes, he never abandoned the sculptural manner of opinion and expression. Even though he was an important persona on our art scene, his exhibitions weren’t frequent, and he appeared in public only when he believed that there was something new and fresh on the sculptural plan which he needed to present. 

       Numerous figurations, small terra-cotta figurations, wood and plaster, often colored, arose from his drawings by which he derived his special figurative world towards the end of the 60’s.