Vladimir Popovic: Deja vu (Invitation to Exhibition)

Current exhibition in the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum presents the Slovak artist Vladimir Popovic. Exhibition is named Dejà vu.

Although Vladimir Popovic has been one of the leading artists representing the Slovak art scene over the past fifty years, he resists lapsing into the pathos of imposing gestures. There is no danger that he will petrify on the pedestal of art history. However, he will appear there one day, thanks to his life and work. Popovic continues pursuing this path as a wanderer or an enamoured young man. It is the same today as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow, using his powerful vision…

Once again, his viewers will not be disappointed. This relentless seeker of miracles of human life, a mystic, painter and 'rainmaker' will guide us through his work from the last decade in the exclusive space of the Danubiana. We will travel through the worlds of GLOBALISATION and UNIFICATION, which transform our hierarchy of values and it seems that they also change the poeticism of Popovic's pictures.

The exhibition consists of his 'fetishes of happy life' in sharp cuts with 'street poetry'. Everything has already been seen somewhere: on posters, in advertisements, in newspaper titles, TV comments, in the streets… It is precisely as the artist puts it: 'I live between a dustbin and a reception. Everything takes place between a dustbin and a reception.'

Vladimir Popovic was born in Vysoka nad Uhom in Eastern Slovakia in 1939 and he spent his childhood in the regions of Zamagurie and Spis. It was still the period of the 'Golden Sixties' when he finished his studies in Bratislava and Prague, and he was able to create works from crumpled paper, assemblage and even actions – paper was accepted as an equivalent creative material. Thus he had an opportunity to work on the film 'Celebration in the Botanical Garden' with the director Elo Havetta without any constraints, to direct the 'theatre of images' and evenings of poetry with young poets and to advocate the inseparable association between words, images and music… The 1970s period, which he fortunately overcame thanks to his spontaneous Gestural painting, was followed by the Orwellian 1980s with the grey paintings of 'concrete sonatas' and angry ironic drawings engraved into paint.

After 1989 he was discovered and recognised by art history. As an excellent painter he was invited to teach at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava and ran the Multimedia Studio for seventeen years.

The artist lives and works in Bratislava. His pictures can be found in Slovak and foreign galleries and private collections.

(Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum)

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