{"id":1778,"date":"2021-04-13T11:16:34","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T11:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ciy.azu.mybluehost.me\/blogs\/nikola-mihajlovic-kori-transmutation\/"},"modified":"2024-07-30T10:04:21","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T10:04:21","slug":"nikola-mihajlovic-kori-transmutation","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/warped-development.com\/en\/blogs\/nikola-mihajlovic-kori-transmutation\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikola Mihajlovi\u0107 KORI: Transmutation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Writes: Stevan Vukovi\u0107<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Transmutation is a \u201ctravelling concept\u201d, today used in mathematics, physics and biology, while historically, we first come across it in the register of alchemical operations studied in Gnostic and Hermeneutical texts from the 4th century, which were re-actualized through the references made by Karl Gustav Jung in his writings. Nikola Mihajlovi\u0107 Kori further extends the term\u2019s journey by introducing it to the field of contemporary visual art, where it pertains to the ideas that see artistic production and reception practices as agents with the capacity to set off personal metamorphosis as a pathway towards actualising one\u2019s sense of wholeness and completeness \u2013 even though this state, once accomplished, may prove to be temporary and reversible. In that respect, the exhibition\u2019s title allows for three possible interpretations: : It may relate to different creative processes the artist was going through while making his artwork; it can also refer to the changes in the author\u2019s personal experience that were initiated by such processes; and finally, it may concern the ways in which the harmony and concordance of the works would prompt subjective reactions in the viewers\u2019, liberated from any conditioning imposed by the particularity of their personal taste.<\/p>\n\n

When observing Nikola Mihajlovi\u0107\u2019s works showcased at the exhibition titled Transmutation<\/em>, one should avoid looking for visual symbols, narrative patterns, or even associative elements. . Although created in the era of referential art, which is dominated by the practices of appropriation and reshaping of pre-existing contents that quote and question both cultural commonplaces and conventions used to reproduce them, Mihajlovi\u0107\u2019s works demonstrate nothing of the sort. Conceived as visual equivalents of the artist\u2019s inner processes and expressed through dynamic interactions between the geometrized forms, the works refuse to be reduced only to the context from which the author originated and embarked on the search for his unique visual expression. Albeit \u2018consistency\u2019 is one of the key words in his vocabulary, he does not use it to argue that a personal style is maintained by the recognisability that rests on one\u2019s early, raw and uninfluenced practices which abstain from undergoing any transformation. Quite the contrary, his works display commitment to the course of continual artistic exploration, which results in both transmutation of intuitive energy into a rational and logical expression, and his personal transformation as an author.<\/p>\n\n

The works by Nikola Mihajlovi\u0107 Kori examine the modalities of synergies between the coloured shapes and lines, focusing on the plastic values that result from these synergetic relationships. They also seek to investigate the artwork\u2019s capacity to have a direct bearing on viewers, without them relying on evocations of the previously seen painterly patterns or analogies with the most famed examples of this artistic discipline. Instead, they are focused on the aesthetic experience of the viewer and seek to provoke new modalities of affectivity that will allow for specific ways of acknowledging reality: in other words, they wish to detach the present moment from the time continuum by putting aside, at least for an instant, the burden of everyday thinking, anxieties and preoccupations and immersing oneself into relations materialized by way of principal elements of visual expression, which are also the only presented contents in the paintings.<\/p>\n\n

The shapes drawn intuitively and painted with controlled expressiveness are demarcated by geometrically drawn lines. In some of the works, these lines introduce architectural elements to the paintings, and yet they do not render them completely architectonic. The gallery-format artwork by Nikola Mihajlovi\u0107 Kori is fully emancipated from his architectural education and does not allow it to automatically condition the way in which his paintings are constructed. In a similar way, he surpasses the common determinants of the street art genre, clearly differentiating the works he creates and leaves as his personal marks on public surfaces from those made for gallery exhibitions. His street art works as well as the pictures he produces in the studio and exhibits in galleries all utilize the same spectrum of visual elements, but the ways in which they are employed are diametrically opposed. He approaches the wall as a palimpsest, fully aware that such substrate bears a myriad of visible and invisible contents onto which he only adds his personal expression and leaves a mark, while the painterly canvas is treated as a bare, intact surface devoid of any particular characteristics and as the author puts it, \u201ca piece of endless void that waits for the author to breathe life into it\u201d.<\/p>\n\n

Most street artists, among whom Nikola Mihajlovi\u0107 Kori often ranks himself, perceive the marks they leave on various public surfaces as expression of their identities (be they actual or projected). These works, which demonstrate not only the authors\u2019 skills and stylistic originality but also openly indicate their social affiliations, follow the codes established by the unwritten laws of subcultures within which they were developed. In that context, Nikola Mihajlovi\u0107 Kori\u2019s geometrics and peculiar painterly treatment of the fragmented coloured surfaces may strike us as idiomatic. In like manner, his works with all their accompanying aspects correspond perfectly to the given environment, and enjoying a dynamic relationship with the spirit of the place itself, they may even appear as site-specific. In the world of street art, this visual idiom renders his artwork original and recognizable, while in the gallery context it may be seen as the aftermath or re-activation of the legacies of Modernism and Universalism, or even opposition to contextual art. Nikola Mihajlovi\u0107 Kori not only accepts it, but rather accentuates it. The art works he creates for gallery shows, especially the works created for the exhibition Transmutation<\/em>, strive towards a higher level of universality. These works communicate less with the cognitive segment of the viewer\u2019s experience and behaviour \u2013which are always conditioned by the impact of the surroundings, social position and general division of work \u2013 and more with their affectivity and bodies, counting on the perception which responds to pure potency of coloured surfaces and relationships of the shapes to which they were introduced.<\/p>\n\n

Nikola Mihajlovi\u0107 Kori\u2019s paintings emerge as a result of a visual investigation that includes the cancellation of differences between the painterly content and methods as well as the reduction of everything considered unnecessary for accomplishing the specific task set by the author himself \u2013 the task he designated as reaching the truth. In his work, he persistently explores the ways to materialise the truth by means of his visual compositions. More than a century ago, C\u00e9zzane assigned the same task to himself arguing that \u201cnothing is beautiful except what is true\u201d, and that \u201conly true things should be loved.\u201d Truth and verity determined in this way hardly agree with either scientific truths or truths resulting from religious or mystic revelations. The specificity of truth found in his paintings is that its visual manifestation is established through the interrelationship of lines, colours and shapes that are immediately perceived by our senses, while at the same time the manner in which they are arranged can be interpreted from the perspective of their allegorical potential, which may result in accomplishment of the psychic harmony. In a genuine and devoted pursuit of such truths, without irony or hiding behind some particular forms of discursiveness, Nikola Mihajlovi\u0107 Kori explores the field of painting and produces works through a variety of applications that include painting on canvases, walls and even three-dimensional objects.<\/p>\n\n

Another distinctive trait of Nikola\u2019s practice is that he places less of a focus on each separate work then he does on their continuous production, even if it sometimes entails getting off the track and looking for the way back. Precisely this search for personal expression is the search for one\u2019s self-awareness, and it unfolds through physical artistic practice and creation of concrete artworks. In this process he seeks to establish consistency which demands a strong justification for enduring any change, while at the same time it embraces those changes that lead to self-transcendence. In that respect, his works are based on the following contrasting relations: the intuitive \/ the rational-logical, which dynamize the works\u2019 inner structure, and also lay the foundation for the continual change in the artistic practice that seeks to surpass itself and move towards the ideals identified and referred to by the artist as \u201cuniversal truth\u201d and \u201cperfect expression\u201d.<\/p>\n\n