Zoran Kopitović: Neue montenegriniche kunst
| Lucida Intervala (part of An American in Paris) Catching the vision of Pablo Picasso, who managed to make a "Bull's Head" from a bicycle saddle and fender, Toso made a "Ram's Head" from the same parts, but more typical to Montenegro's culture. For the large, downward bent ram's horns, he used the handlebars of a racing bike. Another artist from Rutovac, Pero the Foolish, was inclined to a more expressive expression (and, as it seems, to a more expressive way of thinking, too), and didn’t make a ram from a bike, but quite the opposite. When "Lucida Intervala" got him, Pero pricked the horns of his ram "Johnson - the belled leader" with his drill and screwed on a bicycle bell and handbrake. Johnson carried those symbols of cycling and civilization on his horns until the day he died. He was publicly beheaded in November,1996. The Icon Of Sin As a parody to the signs of the times, Montenegrins used to be prevented from doing things like: leaning a bicycle on a car, a rock, a single-carriage train, large cattle and other citizens. One morning, on a pillar in front of the Rutovac Town Hall, a hand-made sign appeared reading, "Leaning one thing onto another is FORBIDDEN".. Experts recognized the skilled hand of the most famous representative of Montenegro's school of porno-art, Pejo's Fico, later called Leonardo Fichoni. Nevertheless, the crude drawing of genital organs bore the unique seal of the great artist. In an essay, "The Art of Conceptualism in the Rutovac Area", published in Munich in 1970, Udo Hagenstern wrote, "The savage drawing of the genital organs created in the shape of a road sign, pinned on the pillar above death notices, is an expression of the deep bonds between sex, death and humor...*" The Idol One of the masterpieces of the Yugoslav Na?ve Art is a painting of a big, fat peasant bicycle. A meaty blood-red cockscomb could be seen down the fender all the way to the yellowed white of the "Borovo" tire. And the long plume of the back fender, as magnificent as a peacock's, looks like a spectacular fountain dominating the background. It holds a small thread in its beak, on which hangs a little red heart on each end. Standing in the foreground, its look is open and strict as if it were an old general. Green hills and little white houses can be seen in the background. The only thing that reveals the fact that it isn't the greeting mug of Ivan Generalic, is the idyllic motif from Monte Negro's Krsto Bajlag's silhouette, cutting little hooks so he could pull out his bike, that's hidden in the far background. _____________________ * Rutovac's Profane Icon is the first public sign of Montenegrin's dissatisfaction with traffic reforms. Many historians correctly called this work, "the first storm warning" of the Bicycle Rebellion and Civil War which broke out in the spring of 1969, like a great steppe fire which covered all of Montenegro. So, the fire and blood of the old Montenegrin Cyclists rebellion was extinguished. The police and army, in support of the traffic reform, killed approximately 75,000 Montenegrin cyclists. And after squashing the rebellion, about 110,000 old bicycles went into the ovens of the Nikšić Ironworks, "The Dachau of the Montenegrin Cyclists". Translated by Maja Popović |
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