The exhibition of Tadija Janičić’s works “Your eyes haunt me”, realized in partnership by the National Museum of Montenegro and the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Republic of Srpska from Banja Luka, opened last night in the Montenegrin art gallery “Miodrag Dado Đurić” in Cetinje. The exhibition features paintings, drawings, reliefs, sculptures and objects that the artist has been working on for the past few years.
Opening the exhibition, art historian and curator of the exhibition, Ljiljana Karadžić, said that Tadija Janičić is a painter who does not belong to any artistic lobby or closed circle, nor any artistic or critic or curatorial circle.
– He has neither the desire nor the will to socialize and socialize with the established artistic milieu, he doesn’t chase gallerists, he doesn’t like curators and museums, he doesn’t show any interest in fancy events where he needs to be seen in order to succeed on the Belgrade scene, the center of all enthronements . He doesn’t even live in Belgrade, but in Novi Sad. And yet, Tadia’s works are loved and sought after by everyone. It’s an interesting case, because Tadija is both an outsider and a highly rated artist – a star at the same time. He is close to the legendary conceptualists, and current young critics are happy to invite him to their selections. Serious collections have long had his works, the demand is expanding in a geometric progression. On social networks, Tadija is followed by an army of fans from very different backgrounds, some of whom have nothing to do with art, but are delighted with his works and titles – said Karadžić, adding that even the signature “Tadija” itself seems to have become a brand and a guarantee of first-class artistic quality. products.
She wondered what was the secret of his popularity in this area? In the subjects he paints, the way he paints, the spirit of the times, the detection of crazy phenomena of our everyday life, erasing the boundaries between the elite and the marginal, the nonchalant charm of the artist, the pregalic work or the lucky arrangement of the stars?
– Probably a little bit of all of the above, with the remark that Tadija almost doesn’t care. It is important for him to work, to live from his art and to be free.
According to her, Janičić is engaged in questioning the complex relations of contemporary society and the life of a small, marginal man through unusual, strange narratives.
– Moral stumbling, emotional ruin, realitized reality, bizarre events, sensationalism, trivia, imperative consumerism, unfinished transition, tragicomic disunity between desires and possibilities, general shaking of all the norms of this world, are the themes that are in the artist’s focus. Tadi, like a lucid chronicler/voyeur, deconstructs such reality with subversive affirmation and translates it into works of art. Using irony, self-irony, paradox, grotesque, astonishment and absurdity as the most suitable means in his strategy, the artist returns to us in a distorted mirror the image of everyday life. In this way, the prosaic everyday life in his paintings becomes amazed, hilariously amusing, infantile, but beneath that level of experience seeps a pungency and decadence of epic proportions. Sometimes there is also sadness due to the futile attempt to make Tadija’s anti-heroes and heroines be something they are not – Ljiljana Karadžić concluded.
Tadija Janičić was born in Nikšić in 1980. He completed his undergraduate and master’s studies at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad. So far, he has held over thirty solo exhibitions in Hungary (Art9 Gallery, Budapest), Italy (Balkan party, MAC Maja Arte Contemporanea, Rome), Japan (Den Gallery, Tokyo), Switzerland (Light pieces, Garaperun, Zurich), Slovenia, Montenegro and Serbia. He also participated in group exhibitions at the Ostersund kunstvideofestival (Sweden, 2004), the Art Clinic at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Novi Sad (Serbia, 2005), the Cultural Center of Serbia in Paris (France, 2007), the Lukas Feichtner Gallery in Vienna (Austria, 2010), Erarta Museum and Contemporary Art Gallery in Saint Petersburg (Russia, 2012), le Club des Arts Gallery at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (France, 2013), Nest Gallery in Geneva (Switzerland, 2015). The works of Tadija Janičić are in the collections of the National Museum of Montenegro, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, the Museum of the City of Novi Sad, the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, the Telenor Collection and numerous private collections.
After the exhibition in Cetinje, which can be viewed until July 3, the exhibition moves to the Banja Luka museum.
