“Philosophy has been on a death-end for the whole centurybut refuses to die as It has not accomplished Its task. So Itsfarewell with Life has been painfully prolonged. Where It has notbeen brought to an end, It is dragging at Its last gasp in aglittering agony, in which It recalls everything It has failed tosay when being alive. Brought face to face with the End, It wantsto alleviate Its soul and disclose the Last secret. Itacknowledges: major themes - they were only excuses andhalf-truths. All these let’s say nice trips into the heights -God, Universe, theory, practice, subject, object, body, mind,sense, nothing - all this is Nothing. These are nouns for youngpeople, outsiders, clericalists, sociologists.

‘Words, words - nouns. They only flare up and themillennia fall off from their flight’

(Gottfried Benn, Epilog und lyrisches Ich).”


These words taken from the book of Peter Sloterdijk “Criticismof the Cynical Mind” were an impetus for a work standing infront of our eyes: ten notions written by pencil on the gallerywalls and plenty of blue little balls on the floor. Notionsfunctioning as nouns - God, Universe, theory, practice, writtenin Roman capitals, a script of stone monuments, a symbol oflastingness and eternity. Discreet gray lead of the pencil can beeasily wiped from the white gallery walls and is in apparentdisharmony with the selected script. However, the lastingness ofsystem and form as well as the instability of materialityco-exist on this wall. They do not clash with each other.

The work has been conceived for the space in which it wasaccomplished. Access to the gallery is from above and visitorscatches sight of the floor firstly. Therefore it should not hareremained empty. It has been accentuated visually and from thestandpoint of contents. Defining andconsidering the relation towards the exhibition space is one ofthe floor firstly. Therefore it should not hare remained empty.It has been accentuated visually and from the standpoint ofcontents. Defining and considering the relation towards theexhibition space is one of the constants of the Jerkovic’swork. Even when exposing his paintings he is not indifferenttowards the exhibition space, he has adapted himself towards byarticulating it.

In April this year a work of the similar conception wasdeveloped for the T.EST Exhibition, the performance of which wasconditioned by the state come across on the spot, in a court-yardnear the Cvjetni trg (Square of Flowers ) in Zagreb. Thementioned notions were written in blue letters on the thrown-offconcrete elements of the urban furniture - remains of flowerstands.

Using the elements of a personal, previously elaborated artsystem (circle, blue color, words-quotations) the author isexamining some of the basic notions, which we oftenunconcsciously and without any actual reason - throw like littleballs. Do these notions have any future? Are they worthy of Romancapitals? Or are these the words, the time of which has passed,as Sloterdijk quotes? Have these words lost their meaning and arethey the nouns of their emptied contents?

The author will perhaps inspire us by persistent repeating andtranscripting them to think about them, adopt them and fulfillthem with meaning.

In his previous works Jerkovichas materialized “Abstract and Absolute” in bluemonochromes, surfaces of pure color, deprived of expressive andgestual elements. The choice of a monochrome is at the same timea self-reflection, but also an opening to meditation andcontemplation. As fields of pure color of basic geometrical forms(square, circle) or with a written-in text these paintings aresome kind of mandalas. Determined by a pattern (as with a mandalaestablished on a circle and a square) they are, in fact, a pointof support for meditation, an art pattern of a contemplationprocess, which is in this case based on the foundations of thewestern culture (memory, universe, cosmogonies…).

The continuation of the contemplation component of his workpresent also in the exposed installation is supported by numeroussymbolic connotations of its individual elements. Along with thesymbolic of script, the symbolic of color and shape is alsoimportant.

The dictionary of symbols defines the blue color as thedeepest and the most non-materialistic of all colors, the colorof mind, endlessness and wisdom. The color of sky. the purest ofall colors.

Circle is a perfect form of the highest homogeneity. A shapewithout beginning and end, A symbol of the cosmic sky and time.For Plato the Universe is a ball. According to the Prophets,three balls are emanated by God, filling three skies. One of thembeing the blue ball - a ball of wisdom.

In his works “Imenice i loptice” (“Nouns andLittle Balls”) the circle - image - surface arrangementbecomes a body - sphere. To be more precise: a little ball whichhas descended from a privileged position on the gallery wall tothe floor. From the circle as a meditation object it becomes agame object.

Has contemplativity become a game?
Has a meditation mind become a cynical mind?

MarkitaFranulic

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Anto Jerkovic
Born 1958 in Tuzla. Graduated from the Academyof Fine Arts, Zagreb in 1983. 1983 - 1986 worked as associate inthe Master Painters Workshops of Croatian Academy of Science andArts in Zagreb. Lives and works in Zagreb.