19.10.2021 at 7PM
From 19. - 31. October 2021
If there was no wind, the leaves would not whisper / Nebojša Despotović
The exhibition is based on large format works on canvas as well as small format works on carved wood created in the last two years. The works included in the exhibition are emblematic examples of the artist’s last reasrch, which is characterized by a strong presence of introspection. The exhibition display and its content is based on various narrative elements that artist frequently uses in rafiguration and the titles of works that are, in this particular project, based on memory. It is almost a kind of writing (from the artist’s side) and reading (from the viewer’s side) of the work both in the artistic treatment and in the content of the work. It is actually a cross-section of memory in poetic form with a strong vitality and sence of play, putting it in strong contrast with rational thought. The title of the exhibition “If there were no wind, the leaves would not whisper” clearly refers to the origin and connection to a certain linguistic reality and the poetic vision of experience, its expression and transmission. If the world is an image then art is language. If the world is interaction, then memory is building material.
Our attitude towards nature and relation to it is a kind of narration to oneself through poetry, and the title points us to the fact that if there were no noise, distortions, if everything were totally clear, art would not exist, nor would language. It follows that our predisposition for aesthetic perception through language (artistic, verbal or emotional) is achieved only by the sophistication and attention that we pay to our own experience and not to language as a globally established mechanism. Expansion of our own horizon within this expirience will represent our personal relationship with the world and unity with it.
Memory is an image, a spirit, a reflection, an allegory and even a hallucination. If the world is an image, then wisdom conveys the meaning of that image. An allegory is an image and a vision is the harmony of that image.
The theatricality of some large scale paintings and the exhibition display itself introduces the viewers into a deeper relationship with narrative, which is nevertheless hermetically limited. The specific dimensions of the works, their mutual relationship and their arrangement in the exhibition display creates the scenography with which the viewer physically comes into relationship and through which he experience the content of the exhibition.
Instagram: @ndliquid
Web site of artist: http://www.nebojsadespotovic.com/