Review 2010

REVIEW  1995-2010

By Camille Delmas, Art Historian
Extract from the retrospective exhibition catalogue “Review 1995-2010”, Gallery ’73, Belgrade, 2010

”… In his new 2010/11 series of paintings, instead of using canvas medium in his work, the artist Bogdan Pavlović uses a “non painting” material carpet. Strong contrasts, reduced chromatic relations and expressiveness are some of the features of these works of art. The subjects presenting social elements, such as contemporary architecture, design or scenes from everyday life, are only an excuse for abstracting the factors which the artist considers important. In this context, according to the artist himself, light plays a special role in the painting: «Although I am rather close to and inspired by documentary photographs, I think that very often their light is pale and monotonous. This new series of works is an attempt to give it more dynamics and also to provide material and symbolic reasons for the light in the paintings. »  On the one side, such a procedure enables the artist to create a new and original work of art, while on the other, it offers a new and semantic key to a documentary photographic record.

Every artist has a legitimate right to develop by following his momentary aspirations.

 To gain a new quality, very often an artist sacrifices the code which made him commonly accepted and recognizable. The basic characteristics of Bogdan Pavlović’s art are the capacity to absorb new subjects as well as its constant evolution. Listening to the times he lives in, he finds his own and free way of expressing his ethic and aesthetic principles.”

Camille Delmas
(Extract from the retrospective exhibition catalogue “Review 1995-2010”, Gallery ’73, Belgrade, 2010)