Vladimir Velickovic

Vladimir Velickovic (b. 1935) is one of the foremost contemporary Serbian painters. Born in Belgrade, he studied at the local institute of architecture and then moved to Zagreb where he worked for some years as an assistant to the painter and illustrator Krsto Hegedusic. Velickovic continued meanwhile to associate with a group of painters from his home city who were strongly inspired by the local surrealist tradition. His pictures from this early period often include amazingly old people or cripples painted in an expressive style. In 1966 Velickovic moved again, this time to Paris, and became involved in the art scene there.

Velickovic belongs to a generation of painters who have experienced the horrors of war at close hand. His works from the 1960s can often be read as grotesque presentations of degradation and explosive chaos. Already in this early phase we see his fascination for a kind of anatomy referencing medical examinations and scientific illustration. Animals as well as humans are studied in detail, and several pictures from the 1970s are close studies of rats. The small laboratory animals are precisely measured and analysed, and traces of these scientific methods are included in the pictorial expression.

The picture presented in this exhibition, Fig. no. VI (1979), shows the human body falling into wrack and ruin. The heads look like they are blown to bits and one body has a tag around its wrist, which suggests it is a cadaver. The figures however seem youthful, vital and strong. Concurrent with this picture we find several motifs showing that Velickovic was inspired by the American photographer Eadweard Muybridge. The famous series The Human Figure in Motion, in which Muybridge photographically charts a running man, inspired Velickovic also to do close studies of the human body in motion. In Fig. no. VI, his interest in human anatomy is the starting point for depicting destructive forces and mankind’s annihilation. In Velickovic’s pictures we frequently find an animal who follows a human who is falling into an abyss. In some cases the animal is an anatomical study object meant to serve humanity; in other cases (as here) it is mankind’s faithful friend on the road to ruin.

Studies of the dark forces inherent in human nature (one can find many such examples in Velickovic’s art) prompt us to draw a parallel to the contemporaneous British painter Francis Bacon. We can also see an interesting connection to the French painter Paul Rebeyrolle, who is included in this exhibition as well. But whereas Rebeyrolle’s figures follow an expressionistic tradition and emerge out of spurting paint and floating fields of colour, Velickovic’s tight figural composition can be described as having a more realistic and painterly visual language. But despite their differences, both artists are interested in presenting mankind’s true nature when faced with degradation or annihilation.

HBU