THE CHESS MATCH WITH THE CREATOR MEGA. The 20th century was a period of multiplying things. Objects were endlessly multiplied without a real need and without any sense. An epithet that fits this period (becomes very close, grows together with it) is: MEGA. The atomic bomb had a destructive power measured in MEGA-tons. The cities grew so much that they became MEGA-polis. The world fame of the actors in the field of entertainment and show business became so big that they were recognized as MEGA-stars. Now the Colossus of Rhodes looks like a toy compared to MEGA-skyscrapers. Corporations or MEGA-trusts became more powerful than countries. And banks, so-called MEGA-banks, always having a hunger for profit and interest, promoted a MEGA-trend in politics, named globalism… I myself gave a modest contribution to the spirit of the time by thinking up and creating a series of large collages (dimension 1.10x0.90m) which, of course, I named: MEGA-collages. The terms: small, micro, mini were despised and refused. The unique item was replaced by the multiple. Only something big was worthy of our memory, comments and admiration. The only thing that counted was the reproduction of something without any character or physiognomy. Millionaires were replaced by multimillionaires. Film robberies were expressed as a prey with endless zeros: 00000000000000000… MORE. Only big series of the same objects which came down from the assembly line were favourite. Everyone willingly took part in the game of big numbers. The multiple of the objects was declared with shorter and shorter best-before date. The period of the finished product storage to its throwing away to the dump was shorter and shorter. In this way, a lot of objects didn’t even reach the shops, those MEGA-markets. Instead, they were immediately sent to MEGA-dumps, where they were subjected to the process of recycling (which became one of the newest and most profitable MEGA-businesses). A person, a customer, a user, an ideal MEGA-consumer identified with the objects which surrounded him. Without numerous MEGA-objects, without throwaway things, without these stupid and ugly things, he would be lost, forced to confess himself to be a perfect nobody and nothing without all these things around him. No matter how much he made an effort to buy more and more things, to take part in MEGA-shopping, he was more and more often confused and lost in the supermarket (S. Basara). And the collection of the objects that he collected around him threatened to bury him and eventually – smash him. The catalogue of the objects, which were all for sale (which could be bought with discount or even more convenient if you waited for seasonal sales), was endless. We were reluctant witnesses of the well-known bible sentence: If there is just little of something, there will be abundance of it. TOO MUCH/MANY. The beginning of the 21st century (which, in fact, hasn’t finished yet, but is a kind of the prolonged 20th century) doesn’t bring anything new. What was a large amount of – MEGA! Now it is – TOO MUCH/MANY. MEGA became a forgotten child’s play only. Now it is forcefully enlarged, blown up, sprung up, metastasis has spread from, in a way, modest and bearable MEGA to enormously enlarged dimensions and to the total absurd. Degrees of comparison are: MEGA, MORE, TOO MUCH/MANY. There’s nothing that could be small, tiny, modest, rare. No. Everything is glamorous, of big dimensions, too big, accumulated, too crowded, and exaggerated in every respect. The whole World hustles around in the explosion of exaggeration. It’s not enough to be moderate and balanced. It’s important to exaggerate! Managers are too busy, and workers’ unemployment is enormous. The rich are insolently (too) rich, their lust is insatiable, and the poor are inconceivably (too) poor. Politicians are (too) lying. Bankers - (too) greedy. Open a newspaper (a magazine, a site, TV, a leaflet) and you’ll see a redesigned world. Everything is exaggerated everywhere, in all fields: actors – overact, sportsmen are overtrained, and women are with too much make-up (with too much jewelry, too modern). Men: they are either macho men, too body built or, on the contrary – too sensitive, in a problem with the raised anima (instead of father, another, so-called mail mother appears). Journalists – too much informed. Musicians – too much practiced. Students studied, studied and overstudied. Philosophers are absorbed in thought so much that they failed to see the essence… Exaggerating, it is a trend and imperative. Don’t do anything in a balanced and moderate way. Make an effort and exaggerate, like all others. Only The Apocalypse of St. John the Apostle announces the fulfillment of the other part of the prophesy: If there is abundance of something, there will be just little of it. ORDER AND MEASURE. There is a painter in Serbia who is trying – and succeeds in putting things in order - order and measure in our World without order and without measure. The number and measure, my belief with pleasure! – the motto of the Association of Engineers and Technicians of the Kingdom of Serbia from 1892. And what is the most important thing is to give meaning to that order and your measure of the World. It doesn’t mind numbers of beings, things, objects and structures. As for the World, a large quantity = abundance, and abundance is a real wealth (not a nightmare). All that can’t be exactly counted, like the number of blades of grass in the nearby field, the number of leaves in the crown of the nearby lime-tree or the number of water drops in the summer shower, these are numbers of mysterious details from which the sense and the beauty of the World are made of. That’s why it’s very important to be devoted to observing, exploring, registering, noting an endless number of elements from which our World is created of. Nothing is so unimportant that it can’t find its proper place in the paintings of Dragan Jovanović. He himself accepted his neutral name and surname, hardly recognizable in numbers of such names and surnames in Serbia. There are as many Dragan Jovanovićes in Serbia as John Smiths in England. In the shelter of his anonymity this Dragan Jovanović, a painter, installed a mysterious watch tower. From it, he carefully and persistently watches the World around him. The World in himself, too. The World in books, textbooks, monographs, as well. He entered into a hard and uncertain, but an extremely attractive job: To count the fish in the rivers (Zapadna, Velika and Južna) Morava To paint one bird from each flock (together with the hard-working humming bird, which floats in the centre of the iris flower, like a fighter-plane which is fed by fuel in the air sucking the udder of the plane Mega-truck)… To give a chance to insects, the ancient inhabitants of the planet. (What do our several thousand of years mean compared to their eons?!) The plane-toy is a real plain contraption compared to ability of long life of a dragonfly or a silver-green grasshopper … MEGA-cities called ‘Titanic 2X’ float over the seas (not larger than a pond or a hemp dip) … The Chinese good-natured dragon is having a rest on the slope of a cumulus-nimbus. The zeppelins with the inscription Coca-Cola are fluttering around it, children’s balloons of pastel colours are buzzing, ping-pong balls, which are smiling, are floating. Some objects, living creatures, commercial slogans, philosophical sentences, sayings of amateur writers of aphorisms – the thing that is on the artist’s mind, what he sees around him or in himself, what he does while playing – as well as symbols and metaphors, all these together are in the same moment-space of the painting. Yet, all is in harmony … The chessboards – stage scenery have several squares – windows for watching infinity. In the starting position there are dark blue-silver hymenoptera with perfectly polished shields. They seem to be still, but they’ve been given the ability to move in all directions (in all spatial-time dimensions), freedom which only the queens in the barren areas of archaic chess have … This painter is not partial at all; he isn’t homo-centric either. His position is close to the procedure of scientists, mathematicians, philosophers or land surveyors. He is occupied and motivated by unexplored possibilities of the World. What could have happened (and it didn’t)? Who could meet whom (and he did)? What has been missed and lost for ever? And what has been saved only in a dream and imagination of the artist!? A lot of paintings of this strange and special Dragan Jovanović are a sort of mental experiment with an issue in doubt. He presents phases of an endless chess match that Nature started with Man at some ancient time. That match is still in the phase of Opening. The World is opening, hesitating and is not sure where to go. What is good for it, and what is good for us? Who knows it?! It’s not good even to learn the whole truth. ‘What will our descendants, inheritors of our nightmares do?’ Wonders the modest Dragan. From all Dragan Jovanovićes in Serbian culture, among whom are people of all sorts: from engineers to tramps, from poets to fishermen, from football players to actors, and so on; just this Dragan Jovanović started an endless and periodical job – to establish artistic order in our World! However, while doing this it mustn’t lose its particularity and its beauty. He is playing a beautiful chess match with the Creator. He isn’t asking for mercy, he isn’t returning its moves, he isn’t asking for a break. Oh, what a match it is! What a miracle of the play! Dragan Jovanović doesn’t have the very thought of a draw. He wants a real play of spheres, both virtual and living one… We can tell him that he risks a lot and that he is on an uncertain Road. And we can wish him to be followed by happiness on that Road. He doesn’t need anything else; he already has everything or he will supply himself with all he needs. 19 April – 2 May 2013 in Požega Milenko Pajić
Posted on: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 13:53:11 +0000
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