W e know Uroš Đurić, a 53-year- old multidisciplinary artist from Belgrade, as a painter, concept creator, actor, a know-it-all from TV quiz shows, a former punk musician etc. Some see him as a legend, others as a poser – Đurić himself claims that neither is true. Đurić is someone who, after 30 years of working on the public scene, more than 200 exhibitions, 15 recorded films and countless radio shows authored on Radio B92 “is trying to fight for his piece of life in this world”. If you were to live your life over, wo- uld you be an artist again? - That depends on many circumstances – where and when I was born, in what kind of family... The actual ones, which created a painter of me, are such that I came from a fam- ily where many of its members dealt with art - painting, film, photography, art history, archi- tecture, so the circles in which I moved were also like that. You could have continued your art history studies but didn’t, why? - The studies themselves didn’t represent a challenge for me. I was familiar with that ar- ea; I scored highly on the entrance exam... But I didn’t like the atmosphere – there were too many geeks, even sycophants. It didn’t suit my view of art and artistic practise as being criti- cal and experimental. At the Academy it was significantly different. Have you since discovered whet- her “God loves the dreams of Ser- bian artists” – as reads the title of one of your works? - God loves everyone’s dreams; it’s just a question of how much a Serbian artist is capa- ble of achieving them with God’s help (laughs). We usually experience God as a fusion of op- portunities offered to us, and we need to be ready to receive them, in full battle armour, and proceed towards realising the goals set. You aren’t always in a position to plan each step – you may have only the conception and desire to achieve something, while everything else is a matter of ways of handling circumstanc- es that most often do not go in your favour. You are also highly rated abroad. Have you ever attempted to try yo- ur hand somewhere else? - I already had a family when my career began to develop both here and abroad, and it wasn’t straightforward to change my place of residence. But I didn’t have any reason for that, because in this environment I have comfort- able conditions for unhindered work and am able to successfully manage my career abroad from here. Things might have been different if I’d received a“call that changes everything”, or I may have missed it. Among other things, my focus is not on my career, but on work that seeks unending effort to develop a particular proce- dure and language. The question is whether I
Bog voli svačije snove, samo je pitanje koliko je srpski umetnik u stanju da ih ostvari God loves everyone’s dreams; it’s just a question of how much a Serbian artist is capable of achieving them
umetnika i prava je šteta što to nije vidljivije u sredini u kojoj njihov rad nastaje. Ogroman je raskorak između njihovih dometa i društva u kojem žive. Koja vam je izložba najdraža od više od 200 samostalnih i gru- pnih koje ste izveli? – Mnogo je takvih. Recimo, izložba u Muzeju savremene umetnosti Voj- vodine u Novom Sadu, gde je prvi put prikazana širina mog opusa. Postoji či- tav niz spektakularnih događaja, kao što je saradnja s Reneom Blokom i Ha- roldom Zemanom, kao najvećim živim kustosima u tom trenutku. To su sve stvari koje ne očekujete da će vam se desiti u životu, a onda, kad počnu da se odvijaju, osećate se kao da ste pijani. Šta znači dobra saradnja izme- đu umetnika i kustosa? – Znači da se međusobno poštuju uspostavljeni kriterijumi, da je produk- cija na visokom nivou, da je umetnik poštovan i da kustos iz njega izvla- či ono najbolje, a ne da radovi služe kao ilustracija kustoskih teza. Izložba je mnogo širi pojam od prostog kače- nja radova na zid. Šta je ostalo od vaših pank sta- vova? – Ostao je bunt. Bunt protiv ne- pravde, nemaštine, uslovljavanja vla- dajućim idejama i strukturama. Pank je još 1977. objavio da nema buduć- nosti, pokazalo se da je u pravu, s ob- zirom na aktuelno stanje 40 godina kasnije. Koja je satisfakcija, osim finan- sijskog momenta, od toga što su vaši radovi deo mnogih muzej- skih i privatnih kolekcija? – Fantastičan je osećaj biti prepo- znat, činjenica da neko u vašim rado- vima vidi deo sebe i da ste usposta- vili interakciju izvan okvira zajednice u kojoj živite. Da li umetnost postoji bez pu- blike? – Ona postoji i bez umetnika, umet- nost vodi svoj samostalni život.
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