Finally found - still alive!

6 min 30 sec / 2012

This video is dedicated to the first Croatian educated painter Vjekoslav Karas. His portraits made him earned the name of the first Croatian painter of that time.

Karas was born in Karlovac in the first half of the 19th century. He studied paintings in Florence and Rome. After schooling he exchanges the lights of the metropolis of Rome for the darkness of the province and returns to his hometown. In poverty, ridiculed by ignorant and weaker painters who nurture an artisan approach to art, misunderstood, he finds a way out in suicide in the year 1858, drowning in Korana the river in Karlovac. To this day it is not known where the artist's grave is (only assumed outside the city cemetery). It's not even known where his bornhouse is, although it was in the center of the city.

I conclude the artist is "waiting" in safety (at the bottom of Korana the river) and I decide to find him. And in my artistic way I find him... the anthropomorphic figure at the bottom of the river gave the signal, it blinked. Finally found - still alive!

K - City Sculptures

2 min 59 sec / 2008

It is about some houses in K (arlovac) city that are not used for housing and have been abandoned for years. Although the Homeland War hit this city, those houses were not damaged in the war. They are simply shaped by the ravages of time, such as rain, sun, snow, wind,...

Plants thrive in gardens, so they also contribute to the formation of sculpture. Some parts of the house are inaccessible and cannot be formed, ie create organic connections, permeation.

Most houses act as a closed form of sculpture. Others are already "open" and now inhabited by new occupants: birds, rodents ... but now in comfortable, nobler like cages. The cottages are thus beginning to lose their connection with culture, and are increasingly becoming part of nature.

K (arlovac) is a city on four rivers and there is a real possibility that at some point, due to heavy rains and snow, the rivers merge into a large lake or sea. This video presents that fictitious imaginative atmosphere.

Summer Holiday (Love Story)

1 min 50 sec / 2010 / animated

I describe the scenes of a two-day vacation with customized pictograms from the instructions for use of electrical devices, through their animation.

We hit the road by the car to reach an island not far away. We unpacked. We took the sailing boat off of the car. We were sailing deep into the night. We set up the tent. Went to sleep. By the time the day was breaking. We saw a big ship. And a paraglider far away. The rain started to fall. We took down the tent. A motor boat dragged us. Sad sheep were bleating behind us.

One feels clear minded after such a holiday.

Protector's Nightmare

2 min 28 sec / 2011

It is a video about a tattooed hero who decided to carry the burden (over 200 tattoos) of popularity on his skin, both his own and famous contemporaries and historical persons.

Being permanently tattooed into someone's skin is an extraordinary honor and a dream of many celebrities.

Skin, hairiness and physiology did their things and so surprised many. Permanent portraits were supplemented with newly grown body hair soon after the tattoo, that had been shaved for tattooing purposes, and the final appearance of the chosen ones escaped control...

Tocher (Dowry)

1 min 23 sec / 2014.

Things are sometimes more subtle than some people.

So the pillow (part of my grandmother's dowry) got cried, because I don't have a dowry but only a minus in my bank account, which I can't and don't know how to reduce due to interest.

The Metamorphosis

12 min 50 sec

The video was inspired by Franz Kafka's novella "The Metamorphosis". In his work there is an atmosphere of fear, insecurity... similar to a difficult and painful dream from which it is not easy to wake up. This is what our age reminds me of. Battles in dreams and in reality.

A man longs for change, and at the same time fears change. Metamorphosis as a dream is also a risk, as it can have unexpected consequences. However, metamorphosis can also happen without human will. The metamorphosis can be spiritual, fashion, genetic. Sunlight also causes the metamorphosis. The metamorphosis can be more extreme. It can also be a return to the old way. It is welcomed as the rejuvenation and personal transformation that takes a place. It is difficult to change habits, attitudes... and the fear of the unknown is not absent.

"Lajbeki" on the way

The new men are "Lajbeki". Although beheaded (disabled, hindered in thinking, expressing thoughts), disarmed, deprived (disabled in motion, one would think powerless), "Lajbeki" are hearty, brave, empathetic, witty, easy to swim in difficulties, a constructive critics. More about them in Project [see "Lajbeki" are coming!].

They cannot significantly affect the appearance of the body, because it is plastic (food is more and more plastic) and more and more plastic and serial. But they can radiate and (carry) warmth, literally wearing a cotton or wool buckle garment hand-knitted with a stitch "straight-wrong" and symbolically they are "warm souls".

They would also be a warning of the transformations that man's body has undergone from the Renaissance to the present day. Plastics and microplastics become part of the human and human bloodstream.

I started developing the idea of Lajbeki during the Covid 19 pandemic. They first appeared on my website as the April Fool's joke (April 1) 'Lajbeki in Shanghai at the Artplus Gallery' [see HERE]. After that "exhibition", they stop virtually in Las Vegas to encourage the homeless who got accommodation in the parking lot. They relax briefly in a favorite stone house in Portugal to continue their journey riding through empty and devastated European capitals like Laibeki the Magnificent. They stopped at a gallery in Florence to compare their bodies to Michelangelo's David. Of course, as always ready to joke, the witty Lajbeki are at work this time as well. They decided to make a small intervention on David ;-)