On Thursday, May 9, the Pavilion in the Fortress opened a solo exhibition by Dr. Bojan Otašević, a full professor at the Faculty of Philology and Arts in Kragujevac. The exhibition consists of large-format prints from the “Waiting Room” cycle, created in the last ten years and realized in the technique of algraphy with multiple colored passages.
Bojan Otašević has been developing an authentic opus for more than twenty years, which is compact in its uniqueness and consistency. From the very beginning, he opted for the world of figuration, that is, for a traditional genre repertoire that is dominantly based on portraits and human figures. However, Otašević uses the motifs that have been the basis of visual expression since time immemorial as a means of speaking about the current social moment. His lonely figures with lowered shoulders and averted gaze, most often nudes, are a symbiosis of the state of alienation and confusion of a modern man caught in the labyrinth of existing events, which are such that they inevitably cause existential and emotional anxiety over his own fate. The artist presents the figures in close-up, often in a sitting position, without movement, but behind this physical staticity lies an eruptive inner energy, a whirlwind of thoughts and feelings, which Otašević achieves through a skillful combination of visual elements based on the force of gestures, the relationship between light and dark, and a contrasting and luxurious color spectrum. Calling his latest cycle of prints “The Waiting Room” from nameless individual portraits and figures, Otašević creates a kind of group portrait of people from the social margins who are waiting for better times and are potential carriers of necessary changes.
Bojan Otašević was born in Kragujevac in 1973. He graduated, received his master’s and doctoral degrees from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. He has organized fifty solo exhibitions in many cities in Serbia and in Canada, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. He has won 23 awards, including significant national awards for graphics: the Golden Needle of ULUS (2002), the Small Seal (2015) and the Great Seal of the Graphic Collective (2018), as well as awards at international events: the Bronze Needle at the 12th International Biennial “Suva igla” in Užice, the Grand Diploma at the 12th International Portrait Biennial in Tuzla and the Special Recognition for Contribution to Graphics in the World at the Triennial of Graphics in Bitola.
The exhibition will run until May 26