Exhibition Milan Stanojev: in the passage of time,
On Tuesday, March 26, at 7 p.m., an exhibition of paintings and graphics by Novi Sad artist Milan Stanojev, titled Milan Stanojev: in the passage of time, was opened in the Pavilion in Tvrđava.
This year marks the end of six decades of professional creativity of the author, one of the most responsible for mapping Novi Sad as a prestigious graphic center in Yugoslavia, professor of the Academy of Arts, participant of numerous exhibitions in the country and abroad, member of ULUS and Graphic Collective, winner of numerous awards and recognitions, among which stands out the Great Seal of the Graphic Collective, awarded in May 1976 for the graphic of Pear on the Table, made in the aquatint technique.
According to the author of the exhibition, Jasna Kujundžić Jovanov, an art historian and art critic, judging the creativity of Milan Stanojev, who continues to create every day, always carries the risk of being missed, and it is difficult to see the extensive work, which numbers thousands of works and whose visual codes flow in parallel. they intertwine, hint at each other. The overriding impression of symbolic-metaphorical frames, during certain periods, changes its appearance: Milan Stanojev continuously conducts a dialogue with himself, and communication occasionally flows in a direct form, showing the image of the moment, and far more often in the form of a kind of visual sign that expresses his thoughts.
The exhibition in the Pavilion in Tvrđava is the second presentation of Milan Stanojev in Niš, after the solo exhibition of graphics organized in Salon 77 in 1983, and is an opportunity to broaden the professional public of Southeast Serbia. As an author of graphics, he showed various interests: in the early period, his attention was focused on themes of associative-abstract content current in graphics and in contemporary painting, which is characterized by coloring and the gradual introduction of figurative accents and records, according to the author. From the end of the seventh decade, his graphics are characterized by different types of figuration, realized in different techniques, from aquatint, through lithography, which provides him with the conditions for introducing color, to the combination of aquatint and reserver, which enables refined tonal transitions within the black and white range. The thematic situations in which the human figure and the products of man’s work and existence are present are characterized by narrative, irony, grotesque, metaphorical-symbolic tone, Apollonian-Dionysian conflict. From pop art “realism” in the early years of his work, Milan Stanojev reached the grotesque and social criticism in the final phase of graphic design at the end of the last century. Over the years, he experimented with the possibilities of the graphic board, performed technological feats on the subjects of “small things” (fruit, everyday objects such as curtains, laundry baskets, pillowcases, etc.), showed the poetic values of landscapes, explored light and shadow in nature and on urban fragments, in order to bring nature back into the associative domain at one point. At the same time, he expressed himself as a draftsman, challenging the viewer to wonder if drawing always preceded graphics, or if the process was reversed.
Although it seems incompatible, it is similar to painting, which represents a significant segment, and since the beginning of this century, the predominant technique in Milan Stanojev’s work, the author notes. His paintings of monumental format evoke different stages of graphic work, but at the same time live a completely new and different life, often entering the domain of abstraction. Although current for more than two decades, this part of Milan Stanojev’s creativity is still waiting for the right interpretation, which, Jasna Jovanov points out, will perhaps be initiated by this exhibition organized by the Gallery of Contemporary Fine Art Nis, which the public will be able to visit until April 15.