exhibited by gallery program:

■  artefiera  / group 2007
■  kunst zurich  / group 2006
■  art cologne  / group 2006
■  subtitles / solo 2006
■  scope london / group 2006
■  viennafair  / group 2006
■  artefiera / group 2006
■  previev berlin / group 2005
■  supermarket of art / group 2005
■  art poznań 05 / group 2005
■  levels of art / group 2003


CATALOQUE PDF 8 MB

links :


■ ivonikic.com
■ artfacts.net
■ obieg.pl
■ culture.pl
■ obieg.pl
■ artbiznes.pl
■ culture.pl
■ kultur.de.
■ saatchi.online
■ freeart.pl/pokaz
■ sztuka.net
■ csw.art
■ nnmag.net
■ galeria.legnica.pl
■ kuluary.prh.pl

Ivo Nikić was born in 1974 in Pristina, Serbia. He currently lives and works in Warsaw. He earned his Diploma in painting from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. A most productive and involved artist, he is co-creator of The Flying Szu Szu Gallery, one of the initiators of the Nova Polska 70-80 project in Lille, France (2004) and editor of Lajfstyle Magazine. He has also been awarded the Ministry of Culture’s prize. Nikić's preferred media are painting, photography and video. He also creates objects and installations.
Important attributes of his work are his painter’s instinct and boyish curiosity, which manifest in his detailed and sensitive observation of the pulsating cityscape.
Nikić paints fragments of the cityscape that are often overlooked. In his works, he frames destroyed and used objects, ordinary litter floating on the wind and the seemingly unexceptional nooks of an apartment as if they are dream scenes. Silently, calmly, nostalgically Nikić traces the smallest trails of human activity, which in their transience are variable. In his attentive analysis of the overlooked, he poses an eternal "Why?" The question becomes a trail that leads to unexpected discoveries, of which his paintings are the evidence. Thus his work frames and magnifies the over-real world of the ignored fragments of our surrounding reality.
The calm colors and gentle style of the contrast with the strong forms of the chosen subject matter, bestowing an ethereal quality on Nikić's work.
Often in his depiction of the cityscape's ignored fragments, Nikić steps back in to the past. In alluding to nostalgia, his work encompasses the peacefulness, logic and existential cycle inherent in the processes of aging and decay.  Compositionally Nikić's work is underpinned by a classical integrity. While each work is deeply poetic, the composition supports the conceptually arranged entirety. However, each of these framed fragments is only one of many exhibits in the ongoing exhibition of exposing the truth.

■  presentation of works                                                        

PAINTING



Little GirI, 2005  -acrylic on canvas, 114 x 146 cm                             ■  more works
 
Subtitles, 2005  -acrylic on canvas, 114 x 146 cm                             ■  more works

Painting is akin to a notebook for Nikić. Time and time again he reveals his private fascinations, the intimate scrawls of his notebook: a coffee stain, bus dirt, a scrunched-up post-office receipt, a mural on a wall of an apartment block, a hidden tattoo, a dark night’s film...

SUBTITLES
presented by gallery Program at
■ Gallery Program 06
■ Arte Fiera 06
■ Vienna Fair 06

This work comprises of a series of paintings depicting a young girl together with letters and signs on a television screen. The flickering through monochromatic shades of gray creates an atmosphere of solemn mystery and suspense. In this disturbing part-dream, part-real atmosphere, the viewer observes the quivering, blurred image as if through half-closed eyes, as if on the verge of a dream. Playing real time against dream delusions, using half-closed eyes to deceive the senses, intensifies uncertainty and throws our ability to make sense of the world off-balance. The unclear closing credits and distorted figure of the girl fills the frame. In trying to read the undefined image, we attempt to make out the closing credits, in particular the name of the girl, but to no avail. Such obsession with identifying, naming, and distinguishing meaning is an important theme of this work.
 

Pitbull, 2005   -acrylic on canvas, 92 x 73 cm                             ■  more works

                                                                             

TATOO 2005
presented by gallery Program at
■ Vienna Fair 06
■ Art Fiera 06
■ Supermarket of Art 05
■ Preview Berlin 05
A series of tattooed body-parts as well as the smudged, well-worn pages of tattoo catalogues are the constituent elements of this work. A chosen tattoo image reflects the personality of the person getting the tattoo. The chosen tattoo marks the person, stigmata-like. A tattoo is a loaded image. It is a capacious picture, at times even a manifesto. At best it confesses love, speaks of fascinations, is a voice of protest, a dialogue or simply an ornament. Created in the imagination, it comes into existence only on the body of one determined enough to undergo the tattooing ordeal. In other cases, the tattoo image is simply copied from an existing template, not unlike choosing an item of mass-produced clothing in a store. Interestingly, most people choose the popular motifs which in turn are on the pages showing greatest signs of wear. Thus even the subconscious choice of image becomes is caught up in the pop culture cycle. However, through each individual act of tattooing, each individual performance of tattoo artistry, the image is rendered unique. Nikić personalized the artistic encounter by painting the skin immediately after the procedure. The soiled skin, covered with bloodstains and blemishes, becomes a document of the permanent decision to select one of thousands of patterns, previously reproduced on crumpled photocopied pages smudged by greasy fingers.

            
cycle Browsing, 2005  -acrylic on canvas, 33 x 24 cm

    
■  more works

FILMS, ACTIONS


Dog in the Zoo, 2005  -video/DVD 19:10 min                                    ■  more works

                                                                              

DOG IN THE ZOO 2005
presented by gallery Program at
■ Night of Museums 06
In this work the artist explores his fascination towards his friends and their dog. The dog in its domesticated state is man's best friend; in its threatening wild state- an enemy. These contradictory sides of the creature are unpredictable like the games it invents for itself. After each walk, it brings home its trophies. These are usually long branches and sticks, often seized from other dogs by force, and therefore proof of its superiority. Each day Miss Plum, a heroine from Nikić’s film, puts her trophies in a particular place- the front door. Each stick she acquires is of great importance to Miss Plum. On one occasion when all the sticks were burnt, Miss Plum was deeply disappointed. Since then, each stick has a chosen place in front of the house. This ritual brings to mind hunters, who hang bear skins and antlers on their walls. The hero-dog brings its trophy home, expecting a reward from its master.

OBJECTS
 
Polklore / Animals, 2005
bird, dif.materials 
                        

Cupboard, 2005
plexi, dif.materials 

Each object was made for a particular exhibition with a distinct context. Therefore they have no common formal features, apart from the role of exhibit in a continuing a conceptual investigation.

Polklore/Animals These were created especially for an exhibition in Stuttgart and are inspired by Polish folklore. Nikić arranged stuffed animals dressed in clothes based on costumes of a hunter, a housewife, and a Gypsy. The costumes were designed by Nikić around a table with ‘folk’ vodka.  This project is a response to Baj Maj – a non-professional artist, member of the Szu Szu group and a friend of Nikić's- who often 'prompts’ them with his remark, "Folk art should make you laugh.’ While funny, this piece is not altogether joyful. It does make one laugh, but at the same time provokes a reflection about the amusement we derive, often at any price. In this case the price of laughter is the lives of the pets/animals bought by the artist at market.

The theme of used things, also explored in Nikić's paintings, serves the piece Cupboard, which was inspired by a conversation with a doctor about unbelievable events and the amazing, often macabre things people use in their sexual games. The cupboard contains prefectly reproduced objects which had been surgically extracted per rectum from human bodies. The quantity of objects suggests that these incidents are quite frequent. It is a practice present in a sector of an entire social group. These objects soiled with the proof of people's rampant sexual imagination, trigger in the viewer both fascination and disgust, faint amusement and repulsion.
 

OTHER WORKS

  Bus Stop, 2003  series city landscapes -acrylic on canvas,  110 x 140 cm                                                      ■  more works

  Thanks, 2006  from the series Little Girl  -acrylic on canvas,  114 x 146 cm                                                        ■  more works