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Miroslav Perkovic's work is work in the context of techno-aestetical and techno-spiritual art in the nineties, emerges owing to the utilization of technological tools and corresponding materials for the purpose of autonomous plastic modeling. The final stage and appearance of the work, as a material fact, which definitely attains its status of a work of art when exhibited in a gallery space, is preceded by mental, devised and technical draft on the basis of which specialized services and individuals conducted the final execution of this work. By connecting a number of integral elements into a whole a long and very elegant plastic body and by placing that body on the gallery floor procures this work with the status of a sculpture, however not in the realms of classical definition of this discipline, but rather as a 'specific object' sculpture of the (post) minimalist milieu. Postminimalistic since in this case what we have before us is not minimalistic reductionism where the shape is reduced to the elementary geometric modules, but the result which is a shape as a type of concise pattern in space is derived from the power of the machine to perfectly adequately and precisely execute a form imagined by the artist with emphasized aestetical characteristics, a unique beauty of an undisguised material concluding with the absolute gleam of processed brass. For the artist himself this work contains a very intimate dedication which others do not (have to) know, therefore in its essence this is a work of subjective spiritual connotations with a highly intimate dedication, which under the lights of a public gallery exhibition presents itself as a visual-artistic highly cultivated optically-materialistic situation in space.

The works of Milica Lukic belong to the same artistic mentality of the nineties, i.e. to that type of art which as its integral factor demands and postulates a precise technological elaboration of a final shape executed in accordance with the plan and design given by the artist. However, unlike the previous, in the sense of location, this work is not placed on the floor but on the wall, which means that, placed in the gallery space as a painting it demands to be viewed approximately on the level of the viewer's eye. Therefore the reaction and reception of the viewer's glance is an integral part of the idea of this form which, kindred in spirit to the previous one, is also of the (post) minimalist milieu. This is a form which, due to the characteristics of a unique pattern in space, demands that our view threads into the hidden places of the form, even though it is known that there, i.e. in those places, one shall actually find the same thing which has already been seen and was visible in the frontal appearance of this shape. Other minimalist principles which are employed in this work is the principle of repetition of the same module (the work consists of at least two identical elements), as well as the principle of variations of similar modules (the elements are of the same formal and naturally material, yet differ in appearance in relation to their similar elements of the second series). Paced at the wall as paintings, these objects greatly vary from paintings by the way that even in the most plain abstract painting a certain last possible trace of illusionism still lingers on, while what we have are physical material bodies which, owing to their concreteness, besides being open for viewing offer tactile sensations at the same time as well.

A work of art is always a creation of an individual spirit even when it is technically executed by the impersonal process of a machine, in both of these cases that work is a sign of the aspiration towards some, in reality unattainable and untouchable perfection which lies hidden somewhere only in the imaginary as well as in the concrete world of art, which must exist and which, owing to the efforts of the artist, can be found.

Jerko Denegri, Beograd, 15 oktobar 1997


                                 
Essay "Untitled" by Jesa Denegri, from Catalog "It Cuts Both Ways", 
Brass & Lightness, Sartidart project, Show of M.Perkovic & M.Lukic, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Juana Mordo Hall, Madrid 1998,
Slides, From the Show of Zvono Gallery, Belgrade 1997