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| Nenad Zilic Born in 1957. Academy of Fine Arts Belgrade from 1976 to 1981. Postgraduated studies in Belgrade and Vienna (Austria). Exhibits since 1981 in Yugoslavia, Germany, UK, Portugal, France, Russia. Winner of several awards. Since 1994 lives and works in France (Paris and Normandy). The intensity of colour, made particularly vibrant by nocturnal backgrounds, the violence of the image in Nenad Zilic’s paintings, create in the viewer that mixture of admiration and shock which has always characterized an authentic act. And the obsession with which the artist renders this image prompts us to consider it (c’est quoi, ce “it”?) as an important key to grasping his message. These truncated bodies, flayed, imploded – what are they? Perhaps they are what one could call the body of culture. Here we find the emblematic images of European painting and sculpture: Winged Victory, Icarus, The Crucifixion, Eve… Seen (from the outside) as an extension of the artist’s hand, the brush has become the hand throughout the history of art: caressing the object (as in Flemish painting of the 17th century); moulding it (cf.the realists); at times guided only by its own initiative. In Zilic’s work, it becomes a surgeon’s scalpel, penetrating to the heart of the body in question, an image of the appropriation of truth pushed to its logical conclusion. Yet in Zilic’s canvasses, the human body directs our imagination, not so much to the flagellated, pierced and bleeding flesh of Christ as represented by medieval masters, but to the 18th century images of the anatomical atlas which fascinated Breton. The art of our time has invented its own models of dialogue with the classics. The attacks that Zilic perpetrates on the body of Culture aim to bring new sense, new meaning to the aesthetic canon in our saturated consciousness – saturated with museumified, overexploited images, barraged with insensitivity to the masterpieces of the past. Today’s world is also a world in which the image of the idealized form is the creation of advertising. We live in a visual context defined by corporal images whose only concern is to seam unconcerned, confident of their irresistible charm. Still, advertising belongs to the same age as museumification and perfected technical reproduction of images as a means of exploiting the canon of beauty. Threatened in its role of representing the human body, contemporary art tries to defend itself. Contrary to pop-art, whose objective is to deconstruct the banalized image, Zilic invites the viewer into a metaphorical act: to gut the body of culture, not in order to realize its emptiness, but to discover the pulsing life within the classical image, frozen in its museumification, degraded in advertising. Education: 1981 1985Diploma of Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade. 1985 Master in Plastique Arts from Universities of Belgrade and Vienna. Exhibitions: 2006 Moulin d’Andé – Solo exibition 2005 Salon d’automne, Paris 2004 M’ARS CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER – Moscow Solo Exhibition Salon Comparaison 2003 Galerie du vert galant – Paris Galerie Autoportrait Biennale de Conches Crea 2003 – Saint-Ouen de Thouberville Salon d’automne 2002 Comparaisons – L’art actuel 2002 – Paris Salon d’Automne – Paris Prize from Fondation de France – Fondation Charles Oulmont – Best artist of the year 2001 Paul Geuthner – Drawings – Solo Exhibition – Paris Salon d’Automne – Paris Galerie Arcane 17 – Solo Exhibition- Paris 2000 Le dépôt Matignon – Solo Exhibition – Paris Salon d’Automne – Paris – Prix Marin Musée de Bernay – Solo Exhibition Comparaisons – Paris Le dépôt Matignon – Solo Exhibition- Paris 1999 Le dépôt Matignon – Solo Exhibition – Paris Salon d’Automne – Paris Figuration critique – Quinta das Cruzades – Portugal Salle capitulaire – Solo Exhibition – Bernay 1998 Salon d’Automne – Paris XXXII Prix International d’Art Contemporain de Monte Carlo Médaille du Mérite et Dévouement Français Comparaisons – Paris Salon “International d’Art Contemporain” – Marseille – Silver Medal 1997 Salon d’Automne – Paris 1994 Centre culturel yougoslave – Solo Exhibition- Paris Galerie de l’Arcade – Solo Exhibition- Paris Cite des Arts – Solo Exhibition – Paris Galerie de l’Arcade – With Classen et Velickovic – Paris 1991 Galerie KNU – Solo Exhibition – Belgrade 1988 20ième Salon of Joung Painters from Yugoslavia – Museum of modern art – Zagreb 1987 – 1988 Stay in Vienna as Fondation Gotfried von Herder’s guest Salon d’Automne – Belgrade Prize Foundation Gotfried von Herder 1986 Group exhibition of Yugoslav Artists Guild Gallery of Belgrade’s Fine Arts Academy- Solo Exhibition-Belgrade 1985 Gallery KNU – Solo Exhibition – Belgrade The Year Prize from Gvozdenovic Foundation | |||||
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