Solo Exhiibition – LUCKY TO BE ALIVE – Art Gallery, Kruševac , 18.November-10. December 2021

about this project

With Nenad Gajić’s exhibition LUCKY TO BE ALIVE, a new door to reality in art was opened with a cycle of hyperrealistic sculptures of a kinetic mechanism. The author’s many years of experience through various artistic media of design, icon painting, illustration, stop motion animation, special effects for film, television and theater production is finally oriented towards the creation of sculptures of the latest technology.

The revolution of the reality of sculptures is a breakthrough from the traditional understanding of sculpture and it is the result of the emergence of the modernist genesis of the creation of these works, which Nenad studiously and dedicatedly realized in his series of hyperreal sculptures, which became his personal and recognizable language. The cycle includes works created in the last four years: One Moment, A Long Sleep, Forever Alone, Nightmare, Return, Eternity, Silence, Dream Girl, which show the simplicity of the idea and form of human and animal bodies, people the author knows in private life or beings who left an indelible mark. Thus, the works offer a handful of universal questions with which we all identify, questions of life, death, man, nature, sadness, joy, the moments in which we exist and the desire to make that moment last as long as possible.

Stopping the moment of life in eternal duration is also the author’s goal by producing these sculptures, which he achieves by using high-quality materials of silicone, organic materials of feathers and hair, different types of canvas, plastic and metal for making the core and mechanism of the electric motor that simulates breathing. Breathing creates the so-called “Biosculpture”, real enough that the author’s provocation succeeds in forcing us out of our cocooned notions and forcing us to explore the boundaries and concepts of living and non-living, natural and unnatural, real and artificial. By deliberately reducing the dimensions of the sculptures to a ratio of 1:3, Nenad Gajić directs us to an increased attention to the finest details, where we remain amazed and empathically awakened in the face of subtleties, slow breathing and time duration. Especially with the very fetal position of the sculptures with closed eyes, peaceful facial expressions where they remain in the “frozen” moment of sleep.

The author’s initial trigger for the dedication of this type of creation arises spontaneously, watching a video of a newly born bird falling out of its nest and failing to survive. That impression shapes the drive of Nenad’s creativity, they want to make the fragility of life in the realization of their work “immortal” with the intention that what is close to us continues to last. This is how the idea for the work of the sleeping bird One moment was born. How he began this cycle of clear conceptual symbolism, first confronting himself, that is, the vision of himself in old age and the welcome serenity in the work Long Dream, leaves us room to come to terms with that idea ourselves.

Inspirium, Expirium, Inhale, Exhale, Essence of life which is made up of moments. In the meantime, we exist, we leave a mark like Nenad’s sculptures, which soberingly indicate to us to stop and realize the unimportance of those things that we strive for in increasing life, compared to the “simple” ones that actually make it important. One breath is enough for that.

Jasmina Bucek

Date

18.November-10. December 2021

Place

Art Gallery, Kruševac

CURATOR

Jasmina Bucek

category

exhibitions