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STUDIE / ARTICLES
ARS 45,
2012 1
What Deconstruction
Is
Not?
(Is D errida s P hilosophy Based upon His Hashish Consum ption?)
Atañas BOTEV
As an ard st acdve in and cognizant
of
the modern
culture
of
South Eastern Europe,
I
endeavour
to
situate my work both locally and broadly. Through
references
to
regional
and
W estern historical .
political,
and
social landscapes,
I
conduct what
might best
be
understood
as a
muldmedia experi-
ment:
my art
offers
a
detailed desc ription
of the
seemingly disjuncdve narradves
-
History
and Art
/. Atañas Botev: Tintin s
Bad
Trip, 2002, oil o canvas,
5 x 7
cm . Photo: Archive
of tlx
author.
49
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2.
Atañas Bo tev: RetroavantgardeP er]ormance 2007 oil o canvas 146 4. Atañas Botev: Alice 2008 oil on canvas 10 0 x 80 cm. Ph
11 6
cm .
Photo: Archive of the author Archive of the author.
3.
Atañas Botev: Pontifex Maximus 2004 oil o canvas 97 y. 130
cm .
Photo: Archive of the author.
5. Atañas Botev: Thus Spoke Zarathustra 2004
oi l o canvas. Photo: Archive of the author.
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6. Atañas Botev:
Blockbuster
2004, oil o canvas, 130 x 97
cm .
Photo:
Archive of the author.
7. Atañas
Botev: www.marcos.com,
2005, oil
o
canvas, 95 x 173 cm.
Photo: Archive of the author.
History both specific and generic. In that complex
and contradictory context, I take the audience into
a h) pnodc world where the great narradves - the his-
tory of the polidcal and the history of the aesthedc
— becom e imm anent. This hallucinatory blow to the
building of a universal academic structure acquires
revoludonary features; and in the domains of the
poe dc, it glows with a perceptive am azem ent and
a psychedelic sho ck - a game w here the in terested
and the active recipient finds the way out by means
of free associadon.
We are a society with all kinds of turbulenc es
and therefore a ferdle ground for committed art is
well prepared . I m trying to make a synthesis of his-
tory, ardstic streams and ideologies of the near and
distant past, and to redefine them, actuaHsing their
meaning today, by confronting polidcal, public and
social context.
This requires, I believe, a hyperrealisdc proced ure
—
a simuladon of a collage where I try to reinter-
pret all my preoccupadons, such as the elements of
popular culture, the comic, film,
as
well
as
quotadons
of artworks by ardsts from different epochs. And
then I place them in a new, organic whole, alluding
(sometimes interrogatively and somedmes ironically)
to what a certain ardst and his work once mean t,
and what they mean today. Being ironical in rela-
don to reality, hyperrealism is also interesdng for
its paradoxical tautological nature. The recipient is
often caught by surprise by the items displayed:
Is
it a painting or a photograp h?' is often the first quesdon
that comes to his/her mind. Another aspect is the
feeling of alienadon and irreality. Painted work also
has pictorial, tacdcal ard sdc values and an aura (I m
paraphras ing Walter Benjamin here) that
in
the age of
digital techno logy b ecom es a kind of a curiosity.
Osama Bin Laden levitates in the apocalypdc
smoke clouds hanging over the twin towers in
Manhattan in their film simulacrum
—
a poster or
a dream.
The day when America, together with the entire
world, experienced a real destrucdve spectacle also
marked the end of the fictidous Hollywood spec-
tacle. The ardficial cataclysms lost their meaning
because no one
wi
ever think of trying to rouse the
audience with the demoHdon of the Pentagon, or
the destrucdon of Manhattan or the White House.
Things that have already happened in real life be-
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8. Atañas Botev: CAÁ
O-pa- g^i-ha t) and
th
Stubborn Ejaculate after
Titian), 2007, oil on can
vas, 97 ^ 130
cm .
Photo
Archive of the author.
9. Atañas Botev: D is)in-
tegration, 2007, oil
on
canvas, 130 y- 162 cm.
Photo: Archive of the
author.
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come epic, while the HoUwood action spectacle
was mostiy based upon some fantastic hypothesis,
up on things that seem real, but which we know can
never reaUy happen.
Two artists from two different historical epochs,
two accompUshed individuals in their professions.
Along with their physical similarity, the next thing
they have in common is their social status. Despite
being one of the best Macedonian actors, Vlado
Jovanovski has been constandy obstructed by the
clannish cultural oUgarchy that had even suspen ded
him at a certain period of time. Although the prob -
lem is local, the artwork is a universal me taph or for
the position of the artist confronted by a merciless
capitaUstic society.
Mo ndrian s structural visuaUt} becom es a kind
of a framework (bo th as a st}4e reference and as
ambient scenography) of that imaginary world the
artist is so scrupulously creating in the direction of
curiosity, always setting aside conven ience in o rder to
remind us of the cynical note o f
reaUt} .
Van G ogh s
colonization as a retroactive decon struction of
Mondrian s artistic intellectuality- from the positions
10. Atañas Botev: Vlado
2005 oil on canvas 100
X 70 cm .
Photo:
Archive
of the author.
11. Atañas Botev: The
Bad Trip of Delacroix
Aroused y His Frequent
Confrontation with Ingres
2007 oil on canvas 130
X 16 2
cm . Photo:
Archive
of the author.
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of an expressive poed c catharsis (there is an evident
inherited aesthedc factor between these two Dutch
ardsts belonging to two different styHsdc-historic
periods). Their interrelation is achieved through
the alchemy of pop-art that in my creadve efforts
acquires almost ritual features. So, humour emanates
even in the contex t of the mo st deHcate conten t: the
character of Dr. Gachet is replaced with the char-
acter of Sigmund Freud, and from behind emerges
Boris Karloff touching his shoulder in the role of
Frankenstein s mo nster. M ondrian s post-c ubisd c
facets metam orpho se (through the experience of the
Bauhaus) into commercial billboards with the logo
of the most prominent brand on the planet - Coca
Cola. In the process of the styHsdc evoludon the
organic structures acquire a geometric aura....
12 .
Atañas Botev:
Super ego
Mondrian 2004 oit on canvas 120
10 0
cm. Photo:
Archive of the author
13 .
Atañas
Botev:
Amnesty 2008
oit on
canvas 80
x
13 0
cm .
Pho
Archive of the author.
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V
Co nie je deko strukciou?
(Je De rridova fílozofia zalozená na ko nzum ácii hasisu?)
Resume
Ako umelec, aktívny v rámci modernej kultúry nosd aj celkovy obraz. Divákov privádzam v tomto
juhovychodnej Európy, sa snazím situovat svoje die- kom plexnom a prodrecivom kontexte do snového
lo tak
lokálnom, ako aj me dzinárodn om kontexte. sveta, v ktorom sa vel ké príbehy - polidcké dejiny
Prostredníctvo m odkazov na regionálne a západné a dejiny umenia - stávajú imanentnymi. Toto halu-
historické, polidcké a spolocenské súvislosd sa usi- cinacné narusenie univerzákiej akademickej struktúry
lujem o nieco, co m ozn o chápat ako muldmediálny nadob úda revolucné crty - vo sfére poedky prinása
expe rimen t: moje prác e ponúkajú detailny opis na údiv a psychedeücky sok - hr u, ktorú aktívny divák
prvy pohl ad nesúvisiacich p ríbehov - poüdckych dokáze riesit pom oco u vol nych asociácií.
dejín a dejín um enia - zohl adñujúc p ritom po dro b-
Preklad
^
anglictiny
M
Hrdina
55
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