Exhibition “Idols”

City Museum Makarska, Rezidencija Kacic, December 2024

STRENGTH OF CONCEPT AND POWER OF EXECUTION

Walking through Aleksandar Bezinović’s exhibition is an intriguing experience. The exhibition space on Makarska’s Kačić Square has proven to be a fitting setting for the exhibition “Idols”. The canvases in the namesake series captivate with their subtle use of visual elements. The minimalism of form and the purity of impression do not allow for analysis; instead, they direct the viewer toward a spontaneous, immediate, and resolute reaction.

The presented works, viewed through an artistic paradigm, can be described as pieces whose minimalism and overall impression convey pure artistic expression. At the same time, the canvases function as a field for strictly artistic interplay between line, color, surface, and rhythm.

On the other hand, the artistic component of these masterfully executed canvases may remain outside our immediate interest. Immersed in the December aura of anticipation, we might accept Aleksandar Bezinović’s paintings as a mirror of a world we wish to see. The simplicity – not pejorative, but sublimated, masterful, and profound – speaks little yet says much, potentially guiding us toward a new relationship with the world. A dark, meandering, and subtly curved mass dominates the canvases, leaving little room for the color that peeks out from the edges of the paintings. The flatness of these works may reflect a creative idea, seemingly straightforwardly centered around the idol – a concept, image, object, or idea – around which the author builds this series. In executing his compositions, Bezinović does not delay his creative decisions. One might notice that as soon as he paints the center of the piece, he could stop. Yet here, he persists in his search and continues. The anticipation is strong, as is the question – What comes next? What lies beyond?

Bezinović’s idol becomes a method through which he explores, embracing the civilizational dimension of the concept “idol”, particularly as it relates to art. As an artistic fact, the idol stands at the origins of both traditional and modern art. Yet Bezinović conceptually deconstructs this notion, while visually sublimating it, creating its visual echo through dense rhythm, color, and brushstroke. Though the idol has accompanied man since its beginnings and is ever-present, it is not eternal. Idols of all kinds rise and fall. Bezinović gracefully sidesteps this transience, harnessing the strength of the concept and the power of execution. He creates with ease, measuring his painterly talent and mastery with the colossal inspiration offered by the idea of the idol. The creative act here feels like a clash of titans: the master of the brush confronting the boundlessly powerful idea hidden behind the concept of the “idol”.

The depiction of the idol from Aleksandar Bezinović’s brush is a visual celebration of both relative and objective truth – spontaneous, fresh, and immediate.

Josip Karamatić 

Exhibition “Temporary Place

Gallery Skola, Split, April 2024

TEMPORARY PLACE

“You cannot step into the same river twice” – Heraclitus

Since the time of ancient philosophers, it has been intuitively clear to humans that things, no matter how seemingly permanent, stable, and unchanging, are not actually so. The truth is that this topic becomes increasingly complex the more it is pondered, and the question arises: can we truly grasp the essence of the constant variability and temporariness of all that exists? Undoubtedly, there is a certain harmony that manifests even in extreme opposites. The interconnectedness of everything that exists on this or that level is noticeable, prompting us to question whether there is some universal rule, a law by which everything was created and exists.

In that vein, Aleksandar Bezinović named this exhibition “Temporary Place,” presenting acrylics on canvas organized according to the same scale and principle (Logos). Through changes in the position of form and the constant movement of rhythm within the whole, Bezinović hints at the variability and temporariness of reality. Through his artistic process, Bezinović explores the medium of painting consistently using repetitiveness and the continuous interweaving of creation and destruction, aiming to create a recognizable visual whole that is more than just the sum of its elements. He begins a series of paintings by determining measures and a set of rules that lead him from the known to the unknown, using the circle as the basic unit – the starting point. Through repetition and variations on the same theme, forms are transformed into abstract stylistic figures characterized by clarity, absence of illusion, a reduced palette, and strong contrast and rhythm, thus confronting us with the complexity of something seemingly very simple, indirectly indicating that complete reality, as much as it may seem within reach, is actually constantly elusive.

Bezinović’s working process deliberately relies on simplicity and emphasized physical execution – he wants the observer to feel that they themselves could repeat the process and create such a painting without knowledge of painting techniques and the skill of creating illusions. The only illusion the artist potentially creates is that of the passage of time and corrosive changes on the surface of the painting.

“Temporary Place” actually introduces us, through the physical, into the space of the metaphysical, emphasizing the idea of the permanent temporariness of the creative place, action, and time that allow the working process to continue and renew itself. Ultimately, the individual results are products of a given moment and situation; from them, it is possible to discern the process that developed at a certain moment as a continuation of what preceded it. Each action and decision led to what we see as the current result, which could have been, and also could not have been, as it is, and as such will precede what is yet to come.

Nina NEMEC