(The) Study of Revolution
Rene Bachrach Krištofić is one of Croatian young
figurative artists whose works continue to surprise us with its potential. New
thematic cycle The Study of Revolution is in part a sequel of his last cycle
Protest of Utopia in which the subjects of his explorations are social
phenomena such as protests and demonstrations and their persistence in the
collective mind. He is simultaneously interested in examining his sense of
being and isolation in the contemporary society.
In a carefully built narrative style, Krištofić
creates a new series of acrylic paintings and drawings that deal more directly
with the mechanisms of totalitarian regimes and social and art revolutions,
while never entering the sphere of socially engaged art. A comprehensive artistic Study of revolution emerges at the turn
of this year. It is a pseudoscientific art experiment in which, by appropriation
or in Rene's words „by a direct physical transfer“ of certain avant-garde and
emblematic symbols and ideas onto the protagonists and by testing it in
fictional laboratories, seeks out to reconstruct their function and effects.
The research starts with 1968, the year that “rocked the
whole world“[1],
marked with numerous student protests, general strikes and school and factory
occupations in France, but also all through Europe. These events introduced serious
social changes, some of which are today a part of our daily life. Attesting to that there are slogans and
inscriptions such as „“Mai 68, “, "Il est interdit d'interdire" (It is forbidden to forbid) or "Élections,
piège à con" (Elections are
idiot traps) or "Cela nous concerne tous" (This concerns us all) tattooed
on the bodies of the characters or written on the objects of Krištofić's, sometimes, obscure compositions.
Several drawings, in pencil and acrylic, present pale mise en scène of science laboratories of revolutionary discoveries,
in grayish tones of a blurry Richter’s effect. (Test, Test 4-6, Test 1968, Test Gezi Park, Projection).This
process Krištofić uses in his last cycle to accomplish the imagery alike to
those of a faded photograph, in which the memories of past events, are slowly
losing focus in our consciousness. Monuments to the People's Liberation War such
as Dotrščina by Vojin Bakić or Jasenovac by Bogdan Bogdanović, in some of Krištofić's
works are being treated as laboratory specimens, stigmas and relics of a past
time. In a similar manner he examines familiar symbols of suprematism of
Kazimir Maljevič: Black square, White on white. In doing so, he uses a whole repertoire
of signs taken from Maljevič's unfinished abstract screenplay and preparatory
sketches for his experimental art film. Maragrita Tupitsyn's essay and
exhibition catalogue Maljevič and film
sets the painting Black square as one
of the key contributions of avant-garde art in the development of film and
photography as a bridge between the medium of painting and mechanically generated
painting production[2].
It is not surprising that one of Krištofić's works Reconstruction of Einstein carries in
itself strong references to the legendary Russian director and the pioneer of
film editing.
The theme of art and social revolutions, repression, freedom
of speech and thought Krištofić processes without pretensions on getting a
concrete answer, given that the result of the study is not as important as the
process itself. By branding or earmarking his characters as though as he is
trying to name and demystify certain symbols and taboos and give them a new meaning.
On a series of painting Transfer or Transfer of protest or Transfer of
suprematism (Prenošenje ili Prenošenje prosvjeda ili Prenošenje suprematizma ) Krištofić tattoos inscriptions and symbols as to determine
the effect they would have on the figures. Very frequently the author
encompasses himself and his intimate preoccupations in this semantic ritual. In
a similar fashion there are the works of a Hungarian artist with Moldova[3]
origins Alexander Tinei, which in the style of a traditional academic praxis transfers
segments of a somewhat disturbed content of a new „alternative world“, of the
reality of cyberspace onto the painters canvas forming almost bloodless figures
marked with blue lines that, at moments, take the form of a tattoo and
represent „marks of alienation“.
In approaching each motif as in the treatment of light
and the background of paintings Krištofić recalls the atmosphere of old Dutch
and Flemish masters from the 17 and 18 century, who he has studied during the
course of his academic schooling. Krištofić’s characters
are static and lacking almost any emotion and individuality because the painter
treats them as still life; as the object of his study. They are almost always
portrayed in foreground while the ambient he places them in is usually neutral,
undefined and sometimes of a supernatural atmosphere like the ones seen in dystopian
films. On dark or grayishly green uniform backgrounds, a heirloom received from
great chiaroscuro painters, he forms figures, half-figures or striking details
and each object represents a certain idea which seems as though it emerges from
somebody’s recollection. Similar process can be observed within the works of Belgian
painter Michaël Borremans who creates surreal compositions directed at the
„victims of their own situations“[4]
frozen in unusual and illogic poses and closed in odd frameworks.
Dramatic newspaper articles and TV reports on riots in
Turkey, Ukraine and Syria are an inspiration and a starting point for a few
works with shocking themes. They contain the images of today’s turbulent
political situation in a series of presentations that resemble documentary film
form. They are taken up in the form of a symbol or a fragment and were tested
on big canvases: from the captured moment of individual resistance with
recognizable demonstration iconography, scenes of hurt protesters, innocent
victims of regimes and ideologies to groups such as subversive Pussy Riot or
even Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. English artist Justin Mortimer
builds his horrific and complex depictions of gigantic proportions in a similar
manner, by a montage of mass execution scenes from not distant „photo reports
from the war in Croatia“[5]
but also with other suggestive imagery
of recent conflict issues in Russia and the Middle East. In this chain of
memories one can sense a strong influence of the media –photographs, TV, film
and in the end computers; or respectively
of using those processes of transferring an image information that are at
the disposal to young artists in today’s globalized world. They equally resort
to Velàzquez, Rembrandt and other great masters of a rich painting tradition
just as to new technological achievements. These intermedia experiences are
often used as methods in finding new repertoires of motifs and forms typical to
postmodern culture, on which our visual communication is based. Krištofić uses
the imagery of mass media in an adroit and unique manner narratively building
it within his creative work. Krištofić’s meticulous approach to each artistic
issue is one of his main attributes that rightfully puts him on a prominent
position on Croatia’s art scene which has lately shown signs of great vitality
and creativity.
[1] Mark Kurlansky, 1968,
godina koja je uzdrmala cijeli svijet (1968:The year the rocked the world),
Naklada Ljavak, 2007
[2] Margarita Tupitsyn, Malevich and Film, Yale University Press, 2002
[3] Vitamnine P2, New Perspectives in Painting, Phaidom, 2012, pg 294
[4] Ibidem, pg 50
[5] Ibidem, pg 218
