<<           IT CUTS BOTH WAYS   The most recent works of Miroslav Perkovic and Milica Lukic that I have seen have both a remarkable austerity and a considerable sensuousness. Both of these qualities come perhaps from a single relentless and resolute operation, milling, enacted on a body of material or, rather, two materials- brass and aluminium. Miroslavs work which we might call sculpture, consists of a group of cast and milled brass lengths butted together on the floor to form a line, the milled grooves producing a slow helical twist alongs his lenghts. This line, slightly raised off the floor, grazes it like some extraordinary cutter, the abrupt ends showing a ten pointed star. The gleaming golden cutter cuts a swathe and it is as if a shaft of light had fallen to the floor (or a star had streaked across the dark sky). Cutting both produces the object (by milling) and is called to mind in what we see. The slow twisting curve along the length articulates and caresses it, the light itself cut, reflected off the constantly changing angle of the viewers position. There is a certain dangerous implacability to it as if, whirring and cutting, it were making mincemeat of the conditions of its own existence. The mills of the gods grind exceedingly slowly but they grind exceedingly fine. Milicas work which, perforce, we might call painting, consists of three pairs of milled square section aluminium ingots, the members of each pair being identical though different from the other two pairs. Positioned on the wall in pairs, each pair in line, there is a charged space between the paired sections, both absence and presence. The aluminium lengths function as something like a bracket or quotation marks for this space. The milling along the length of the metal is interrupted and then continues on the other side. The interruption exposes the section and allows us to see that the milling has been carried out on each side of the ingot. Front, back, top and bottom are functions of placement rather than difference. there is thus a certain resistance to the wall as if one would say that they are against it rather then on it. Each pair is an interrupted unit, either a continuity that has been broken (one long length halved) or a repetition after a pause (the same action executed on a similar body of material). In the one case the break in the middle interrupts a continuity whilst at the same time reveling it. At British seaside resorts one of the traditional souvenirs is sticks of lettered hard candy (rock) featuring the name of the resort. Breaking the stick reveals that the lettering runs all the way through. Of course once broken the marvelous idea of the continuity between two ends is interrupted. Yet at the same time two new sticks have been created. Finally perhaps only a salami slicing would enable you to say that lettering did run all the way through that stick of rock which, unfortunately, had become only fragments. So the space between the two halves has the character of showing something (unity) and nothing. In the second case, that of an action repeated after a pause, the space between is a negative- a pause - but also excessively present - both before and after. There is a difference between a material that is cut and material that is polished. Brancusi himself always referred to his polishing as a final carving. Miroslav reveals, polishing seals. Both produce a bright surface but in the one case this is an opening in the material body and in the other a closure of the material surface. The milling that Miroslav and Milica have orchestrated is a step into open. Richard Deacon, 20 May 1998                         Essays "It Cuts Both Ways" by Richard Deacon, from Catalogue "It Cuts Both Ways" Brass & Lightness, Show of M.Perkovic & M.Lukic, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Juana Mordo Hall, Madrid 1998 Slides, From the Show of Gallery Zvono, Belgarde 1997