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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



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.



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-



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


9. Atañas Botev: D is)in-

tegration, 2007, oil

on

canvas, 130 y- 162 cm.

Photo: Archive of the

author.



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.



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




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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