Dimitrije Martinovic
525-155 Dalhouse Street
Toronto, M5B2P7
Kanada (Canada)
Kunstart: Fotografie
Technik: Digitalfotografie
Statement:
I am an artist/photographer living and working in Toronto, Canada.
Vita / Lebenslauf:
There are two projects that appear on this site, one is entitled "The Farrago Eggs" and consists of 10 photographs, and the other one is entitled (2008) and consists 8 photographs.
ARTISTS' STATEMENT
The Farrago Eggs 2009
Photographs by Dimitrije Martinovic
The Farrago Eggs is a new series of photo works and the continuation of my exploration into what could be considered thematically as; Artifice. In these works I was, to a certain extent inspired and influenced by the famous Faberge Eggs, circa 1885 � 1917 an eventual collection of 50 created for the Czars Alexander III and Nicholas II of Russia which were reminiscent of the matryoshka nesting dolls. Today these jeweled eggs are estimated to be valued in the billions if not priceless.
Farrago is defined as; an assortment or a medley; a conglomeration, pastiche. I have associated this with the dominant aspects of the Faberge Eggs, being of the ornate and the decorative. I began to question the notion of the opposite of too pretty? Driven to explore the diametrically opposed view of the saccharine aesthetic of the world's most precious objects I began the task of subverting these devices into the service of a different kind of sensibility. One that reveals a human narrative when devoid of pretty; stories of infamy, disgrace, dishonor, impropriety, outrageousness, scandal, shame, villainy and wickedness: a listing of eternal damnation. One in which the extreme euphoric states commonly associated with the pretty, beautiful and treasured are turned upside down giving way to the hairy underbelly of these precious domains. The tops have opened for us, very different surprises lie inside these realigned worlds of guilded eggs. It is the unexpected; the less than pretty, less than beautiful and less than treasured offspring, but one that brings a truth undisguised by mere artifice.
In 2005 I began working exclusively in the media of photography. I approached creating each of the manipulated and collaged images with a stratagem. I begin with purposefully loaded inexplicable primary images such as: a woman falling out of a high rise building, a young girl holding a stick of dynamite, an indigenous man in a tropical jungle holding a urinal, two men dressed only in diapers or a semi-naked handicapped woman on her scooter. In taking them out of their home environments, liberating the subject from their original settings I am more able to ascertain the essence of their form. The subjects begin to gather objects around themselves, ideas, genres, begin to free fall, exploding, assembling and disassembling. A merging of the divergent and seemingly incongruous elements come together into a final pattern of coherent narrative. Illuminating any number of possible readings of an image that on the one hand seeks to be familiar while at the same time on the other hand is at odds with a conventional understanding of what is being played out.
Concurrent to this mass-up process of deconstruction and amplification there is another layer of significant concern and interest for me with each image: its' narrative. I consistently leave these open ended and unresolved favouring a non-linear approach. One in which the viewer is perhaps displaced by their preconceptions and must follow a new path of literacy previously censored and as yet uncharted placing viewer authorship within the moment of realization.
Project Overview
(2008) a photographic installation by Dimitrije Martinovic
In Dimitrije Martinovic's new body of photographs (2008)we are introduced to
characters who must all be the cast of a new contemporary opera in four acts.
Certain similarities are apparent and if you look long enough you will
hear the Rock & Roll, Blues, Klezmer, and Headbanger music quietly
woven into the libretto hanging in the air just in front of the backdrops.
These images take the viewer that far into their imaginations as to hear
the musical score. Why do these people all live on a plateau of their very own?
On one in which the meaning of; larger than life repeats loudly and irrationally
towards gothic surreality. Surely merry pranksters all or rather are we truly
witnessing mere moments before tragedy takes place? Welcome to a world at the end.
In: The Girl with the White Head Band, the white chick on a nasty delicious high
beckons you into her world of refracted reality, beautiful to look at, delightful to
hold but if you break it, it is sold. To the Devil.
Just trying to view the remains of your beloved? Sorry the mortuary is closed.
and someone shrank all of what we knew as culture, or so it seems in; the Golden Defender.
Stylistically creepy in every modern way.
In her famous SCUM manifesto a ranting Solanas1 called for destruction of men and
men-loving women, to liberate all women. In the image; Vigilante we may be viewing
a Solanas acolyte in the midst of her practice. There is no shame on Her great black
beauty with admittedly certain vicarious impulses being satisfied on the viewers end
in remembering a favourite communist slogan: "The last capitalist will be hung by the
guts of the last bureaucrat", like that but feminist, lovely. All's fair in love and war,
never more clear in this total collapse of moral ethics as this gentleman finds
himself in mortal danger and in a state of complete humiliation. Little in this world
could be as bad. Martinovic could well use the alternative title;
The Great Mother Takes Her Revenge.
The Klezmer band stops playing just moments after the image of; Universales and
all Hell breaks loose at the wedding reception when Slyvia's mother is introduced
to Katherine, the WASP butch girfriend of her rabinal student daughter. We witness
their content communication as they exchange 10 different universally accepted hand
signs like; Whad up? and Surf's up! Sacred gathering places where human rituals
occur are also likely places for bleeps in the universe, outrageous events only too
familiar within our own family histories.
Martinovic paints possibilities with a deft stroke, tongue in cheek. Or is his tongue
directed more toward us in our humanity. Are these symbolic narratives allegories
of our contemporary worlds, living out our own dualistic lives positioned on our
own individual precipice? But what if, "God were one of us? Just a stranger on a bus"?2
As in the colours of the spectrum coming full circle when red meets blue, to be able to
laugh at ourselves with one another is truly our divine gift.
Shoshoneah Jinpatstomo
1 Valerie Jean Solanas 1988 was an American radical feminist writer best known for
shooting the artist Andy Warhol in 1968. She wrote the SCUM Manifesto, a Valerie Solanas
autho/publisher SCUM manifesto
2 Joan Elizabeth Osborne (born July 8, 1962) American singer-songwriter.
Her song One of Us 1995 brought her notoriety
Curriculum Vitae - Dimitrije martinovic
Dimitrije Martinovic - born 1951 Pancevo, Vojvodina, Ex-Yugoslavia.
1971 -1974 Dimitrije Martinovic studied drawing and painting with Mort Harris, a graduate of The Art Students League of New York.
1976 - 1980 Dimitrije Martinovic entered the diploma program of the Ontario College of Art, specializing in Experimental Arts, Film, Video and Performance.
Exhibitions (Drawing, Painting, Sculpture and Photography)
2009 Les Rues des Refuses/Nuit Blance, Toronto, Canada
2009 Index G Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2009 Inter.Day of the Refugee, City Hall, Toronto, Canada
2008 Manif dart 4, Quebec City Biennale, Quebec QE Canada
2008 Propeller Center for the Visual Arts, Toronto, Canada
2007 Galerija savremene umetnosti, Pancevo, Serbia
2007 Rue Prince Arthur(posterin action)Vebdart,Montreal, Canada
2007 Dundas Square (postering action )Vebdart, Toronto, Canada
2005 World Council for the Arts - 2nd Biennial International Exhibition, SF, U.S.A.
2004 Gallery 1313, Toronto, Canada
2001 Tusk Gallery, Toronto, Canada
1998 Gate 403 ,Toronto, Canada
1996 DelBello Gallery - group exhibition Singidunum - Toronto, Canada
1994 Durham Art Gallery, Durham ON Canada
1993 Queen Mother Cafe, Toronto, Canada
Film and Video Work from 1978 to 1988
Most of the film and video work of this period is based on found material, reworked true and fictional stories, from public and private archives.
Mira Come and Dance - 1977, 3 minutes 16 mm., Untitled - 1978, 10 minutes video,
Pistol Shots - 1980, 10 minutes video, Boy on a Swing - 1981, 10 minutes video,
My Mother Makes Soup Noodles...My Father Cuts a Simple Thread - 1982, 10 minutes video, The Fourth Evidence is the Complete Absence of Mercy - 1983, 30 minutes video with Christian Morrison, Three Acres and a Cow - 1985, 30 minutes 16 mm with Christian Morrison, Nell - 1987, 3 minutes video, Salome - 1988, 22 minutes video with Paulette Phillips and Geoffrey Shea
Screenings: 1978 to 2007
1978 Fifth Network Video Conference
1978 Center for Experimental Arts and Communication, Toronto, Canada
1979 YYZ Gallery, Toronto, Canada
1979 Gallery 76, Toronto, Canada
1979 The Funnel, Toronto, Canada YYZ Gallery, Toronto, Canada
1980 Film Forum, Harbourfront Toronto, Canada
1980 Cabana Room, Spadina Hotel, Toronto, Canada
1981 London Video Arts, London, England
1982 Art Culture Resources Center, Toronto, Canada
1982 The Institute Unzeit, Berlin, Germany
1982 Ed Video, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
1983 Art Culture Resources Center, Toronto, Canada
1983 The Forest City Gallery, London, Ontario, Canada
1983 Coaxing The Cable, Rogers Cable, Victoria B.C.
1983 Glendon Gallery, Toronto, Canada
1984 British Canadian Video Exchange, Canada House, London, England
1984 American Film Institute, Los Angeles CA, USA
1984 Museum Of Modern Art, New York NY, USA
1984 The Frontier Series, Media Study PBS Channel 17, Buffalo NY, USA
1984 Canadian Images, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
1985 World Wide Video Festival, Kijkuis House, Den Hague, The Nertherlands
1985 The Holland Festival, Amsterdam, The Nertherlands
1985 New Channels Video Series, Tonawanda Arts Council, NY, USA
1985 Art Culture Resource Center, Toronto, Canada
1986 Canadian Embassy, Rome, Italy
1986 AKA Gallery, Saskatoon, Canada
1986 Saw Gallery, Ottawa, Canada
1987 Square One, Mississauga ON Canada
1990 V-Tape, Toronto, Canada
2004 Hallwalls Gallery, Buffalo NY USA
2006 Modern Fuel Gallery, Kingston ON Canada
2007 Trinity Square Video, Toronto, Canada
Performances
Primo Chickpeas - YYZ, 1980, Toronto, with Jorge Lozano, Rebecca Garret, and Denise Cooper
Untitled - Art Gallery of Ontario - 1980, Toronto, with Christian Morrison, Jorge Lozano, Rebecca Garret and Denise Cooper
Permanent Collections
National Gallery of Canada
Museum of Modern Art (N.Y.C.)
Trinity Square Video, Toronto Canada
artlout: Magazine, Leipzig, Germany
And other private collections.
Revues and Publications
2008 artlout: magazine September issue - Manipulation by Kevin Hahn - see www.artlout.com
Aktivitäten / Ausstellungen:
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You fuckin fuck... (two)
Malerei
Ölmalerei
98 x 76 cm
2009
Preis: 820 Euro
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You fuckin fuck... (one)
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
98 x 76 cm
2009
Preis: 820 Euro
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The bitter tears of the Condo Dwellers (two)
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
108 x 136 cm
2009
Preis: 820 Euro
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The bitter tears of the Condo Dwellers (one)
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
108 x 136 cm
2009
Preis: 820 Euro
mehr Informationen
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Sexy
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
112 x 134 cm
2009
Preis: 820 Euro
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Poor little Dynamite Girl
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
113 x 48 cm
2008
Preis: 820 Euro
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Fallin
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
120 x 95 cm
2008
Preis: 820 Euro
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El Pequeno Regalo
tip
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
120 x 149 cm
2009
Preis: 820 Euro
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Desolate
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
95 x 121 cm
2008
Preis: 820 Euro
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UNIVERSALES (PANEL FIVE)
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
127 x 162 cm
820
Preis: 820 Euro
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UNIVERSALES (PANEL FOUR)
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
127 x 162 cm
2008
Preis: 820 Euro
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UNIVERSALES (PANEL THREE)
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
127 x 162 cm
2008
Preis: 820 Euro
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UNIVERSALES (PANEL TWO)
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
127 x 162 cm
2008
Preis: 820 Euro
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UNIVERSALES (PANEL ONE)
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
127 x 162 cm
2008
Preis: 820 Euro
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VIGILANTE
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
127 x 119 cm
2008
Preis: 820 Euro
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The Girl with the White Head Band
Fotografie
Digitalfotografie
119 x 127 cm
2008
Preis: 820 Euro
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