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Meeting the Angel
Gallery "Marko Cepenkov",
Center for Culture,
Prilep
03.12.2005 -15.01.2006
Since angels are believed to be forces beyond the logics of our
existence is a meeting with them possible?
- I
didn’t enter the Archangel Gabriel from Kurbinovo series out of religious or
spiritual needs. Actually,
I was fascinated by the moment when a 12th
century masterpiece was put on a 50 denars bill, which changed its meaning
iconographically. In that way a superior work of art has become pop art. But
as I started to work and as that concept started to broaden, I realized I
was hungry for work on this problem, and that the problem is endless. I
started to discover certain states and feelings in me, which, I must admit,
I couldn’t cope with at the beginning. Some of them were almost paranormal.
I tried to share those experiences with an interesting Peruvian philosopher,
who lives and works in Berlin and who recommended literature about the
merciful angel energy. There was also Dionysus with Heavenly Hierarchy,
as well as some other works that analyze the phenomenon angel quite
thoroughly.
Jovan, you have been working on the motif of the Kurbinovo angel for some
time now…
- The
photograph I made of this angel in this work I studied using computer
software. It was very interesting to see how that tin changed its character
depending on light and contrast. The computer interventions on that photo
gave a surprisingly new result, a new face, new face expression, it was even
possible to notice different emotions…the gender was changing, i.e. the face
was changing from masculine to feminine. When I lightened the image
excessively it became feminine, when I darkened it, it appeared more
masculine. Today it is very risky for a person to work on the image of an
angel. For me as an author that was a moment when I knew that I had to
prepare very well, that is to give format, content and answer to all the
question that I was asked. I found it significant that for a long period of
time that angel was considered a 17th century masterpiece, but
not until the patina from the fresco was removed did people discover that it
was a 12th century work. This is evidence that the authors of
this piece were way before their time and not by chance, the piece is
considered neo-baroque. While working on ‘Meeting with the Angel”, I decided
to use the effect of machine raster, which I simulated using a computer.
Having in mind my experience in constructive painting, I started with three
basic colors—yellow, red and blue. However, there was a need for more, so I
added white, gray and gold tones…I entered the exploration of Renaissance
range of colors. The need for more would not fade, resulting in 120 angels
so far.
Interview with Jovan Balov
Mimoza Petrevska
The Angel as an Inspiration
Eftim Kletnikov
The angel has lived in our conscience and imagination from time
immemorial. It’s their archetype. In one of her poems Emily Dickinson says
that angels are in our neighborhood and everywhere around us. Both painting
and literature, being an open Book of Heavens, are filled with angels. They
are found in abundance in music and Renaissance, in Byzantium and the
baroque. Bach’s fugues are filled with angels. The angel can be observed as
one of the deepest, most innocent and purest products of human imagination
from where it entered the Holy Books (The Bible and The Quran), and from
there it moved to the Byzantine frescos and icons, in the gothic sculptures
and the canvases of the Renaissance masters, and from there, in its circular
way, got back as an inspiration in poetry. It has been so with Dante, Milton
and Blake. It has been so with Rilke also, who formed the image of the angel
as a vision in the Duino Elegies”, after seeing and recognizing it as an
inspiration in the painting of El Greco. According to the Holy books and
legends, everybody has his own guardian angel, though not everybody is
allowed to meet him. That meeting, regardless of whether it occurs in
reality or in one’s dreams, is a privilege of the chosen ones and happens in
times of spiritual revelation, when our being has completely conquered the
sphere of the sacral. The Meeting with the Angel by Novica Trajkovski
and by Jovan Balov is, namely, such a meeting—completely in the sign of
spiritual ecstasy from the music of the sacred.
In Balov’s case, the meeting with the angel occurs in the realm
of the spiritual. The divine Angel from Kurbinovo, secularized in a post
modernistic manner on the 50 denars bill, is back in the area of the sacral
in Balov’s canvases. Where he truly belongs. In the paintings of Jovan Balov
the Angel from Kurbinovo is not represented in his complete size, as it is
in the famous fresco, with his spirally curved figure and baroque folds in
his transparent robes, but only by his face; that is to say it is
represented as a portrait. Aristotle, in his Poetics, develops the
theory of art as a mimesis of nature. The principle of mimesis,
as a method for artistic realization of the ideal model is evidently present
in Balov’s paintings, but that is not a mimesis of nature, as it is
with the Ancient Greek philosopher, but now it is a mimesis of art
itself, seen as a motif and ideal of art.
That type of mimesis, simultaneously eclectic and
creative, is well known to modern art, and some artists, above all Picasso,
have used it amply in their artistic creation. The serial layout of the
image of the Angel from Kurbinovo is dangerous in itself, because it can
quite easily be transformed from a symbol into a common emblem or a
stereotypical cliché. That would have probably happened to an average
painter, but Balov is not such a painter. Both as a drawing and as a
composition, solely by changing the color tone of the painting’s background,
he knew how to pull the Angel from Kurbinovo from the cliché trap and
imprint his authentic mark on it. Balov made him keep his spiritual content
and symbolical significance entirely, in which according to the rules of
symbolist synesthesia and its musical suggestions, hesitating between an
elegy in minor and a hymnal cantata, color tones take part, too—white and
blue, dark brown, ocher and red. Balov’s Angel emerges to the surface as if
from some inaccessible spiritual depth. It is Narcissus precisely
crystallized in the focus of its opaque essence.
Balov’s Angel is done in a masterly, robust and firm, yet
refined drawing, which is a kind of a mental basis or web for catching the
ideal spiritual beauty. In a word, it is the embodiment of pure inspiration
of the author, the serenity of the being from which the soul of the form is
created.
As a conclusion, I can say that Archangel Gabriel by
Jovan Balov is a completely successful and lasting conformation of this
painter’s lavish talent. This, in a very suggestive manner, work reveals and
confirms Balov’s creative path, his explicit creative élan and ecstatic
imagination. In a word, the epoch of nihilism, in which Nietzsche and
Kandinsky, not by their fault, declared God dead, and whose ideas the modern
20th century art fed on, seems to become a thing of the past. The
absolute beauty of Mallarme that encompasses the opaque depths of the
nothing or the sterile clean glaciers of language, where the
ontological content feeds on esthetics and nihilistic philosophy seems to be
retreating before the full blooded harmony of imaginative beauty. In it this
work once again finds its ideal balance between the corporeal and spiritual.
The antisacral, characteristic of 20th century art retreats
before the sacral. The work of art once again finds its metaphysical quality
in the zone of the sacred where God an angel reside, and not in the zone of
the secular and the desacralised objects and values. Jovan Balov’s
Meeting with the Angel, fruitful for him and art in general, confirms
this in a quite powerful and artistically suggestive way.
***
The Annunciation of Archangel Gabriel
Christian Ringkloff
According to the biblical legend archangels play an exceptional
role. Archangel Gabriel is the second of four archangels and is known as the
angel of annunciation. In the Catholic Church it is represented in blue with
a single lily. He announces the birth of John to Zachary and the birth of
Jesus to Mary. He rules the world of feelings, emotion and the subconscious.
The ancient Christian mystique describes archangels as holy spiritual
beings, creators and guardians of universes, in which they project
themselves too.
The work of Jovan Balov can be seen as a type of projection.
Archangel Gabriel from Kurbinovo is a series of 120 paintings, showing the
head of Archangel Gabriel. They are put on the canvas using a pen, and after
a deep observation one can conclude that here, as in the litany in the
process of creation, a meditative condition is achieved. The features of the
face vary from merciful to violent, from masculine to feminine.
As a pattern Jovan Balov used a fresco found in the church of
St. George in Kurbinovo, Macedonia. The fresco, together with a great number
of other frescos, was discovered by accident, during restoration activities
by a conservation team from Eastern Europe in 1958-59. It is estimated that
the Archangel Gabriel fresco dates from 1180-81. The unusual thing about the
frescos found is their style, resembling baroque, and which is way before
its time.
Once again I want to refer to the projection Jovan Balov does.
What does Archangel Gabriel announce to us? The fresco Balov used as a
pattern refers to the Archangel Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary (Luke 1.26).
In its many variations, Jovan Balov’s Archangel Gabriel is reflected in his
own context and by that he has passed through the filter of contemporary
art. The work indicates a highly developed culture, to which Kurbinovo,
apart from other things, needs to be understood as a cradle of many
civilization characteristics of present Macedonia. However, the indication
itself, the Archangel Gabriel series of paintings are created now.
The medieval culture of present Macedonia clearly penetrates
through the paintings it is noticeable and dignified but also tied in its
present form through the artist. It presents itself as a projection of
ancient culture in our point of view. Here, in an interesting way we have a
provocation of a dialogue with the archangel, implicated by the view of many
generations. What does archangel Gabriel announced to us? First, that
certain things surpass time; Here Archangel Gabriel from Kurbinovo is filled
with life. Second, we are in a dynamic process; because, when the thing
presented is observed in comparison with the pattern it becomes clear that
numerous facial expressions of Archangel Gabriel are in fact the different
ways and interpretations of people on dialogue with culture or history and
the corresponding systems. Perhaps Archangel Gabriel appeals to us for our
senses. He calls out for permanent careful reexamination of rational and
hermetic superstructure of different epochal links; or for the numerous
processes taking place on us to be felt with a clearer conscience.
Jovan Balov has passed through various states during the
creation of the series of paintings. He, as a modern artist, has entered
into a dialogue with Archangel Gabriel and has created something that links
his homeland with the reflecting, cosmopolitan world of art. Perhaps that is
why it is even more unusual that in such a form Archangel Gabriel can
announce something to US at all.
***
“Archangel Gabriel”
Eric Boerner
In every work of art, several task set by the artist himself can
be recognized. The completion of these tasks are transformed in a work of
art, creating a whole, from which later on they cannot be isolated without
destroying it. Which tasks did Jovan Balov set in this work of art?
1.
At the beginning we discover the image of an angel. It comes from the
frescos of a Macedonian church, which according to the art historians can be
dated between 12th and 17th century. These frescos are
medieval masterpieces, but on the other hand they could be remains of the
Neobysantine baroque (literary, the baroque neobyzantinism). Either way, the
church is in Macedonia and Jovan Balov is a Macedonian. According to that,
the first task is the following: make reminiscence, reconstruction of your
homeland.
2.
Than we can notice that the angel keeps reappearing. More precisely, there
are 90 projections. All projections are quite big and have the same detail.
Aha! Serial work of art. Warhol’s Marilyn turned into an angel. That is
still done. Even the state monetary institutions in Macedonia do it, because
this very angel is on the 50 denars bill. Balov has serialized the angel,
which has already been presented through the serial number on the coins.
Second task: Make an ironic serial work of art.
3.
The pictures are placed on foundations in various colors. There is blue,
yellow and red, as well as pure white and very dark gray, almost black
(still, the angel must be seen, which excludes the black color). That, of
course, resembles the principle of Mondrian—to use basic colors only. Still,
the arrangement of the paintings creates big surfaces in color. Aha!
Constructiveness. Third task: Make a constructive work of art.
4.
Behind the colored background there is the old white color and the gold
color. Before the white giant (?) was discovered, the freshly washed laundry
and the walls weren’t as “white” as they are today. That’s why I named it
old white. And the gold color is the color of the sky in the hagiography (we
use this to describe icon painting in churches?), the color of the real sky
where the angels and the saints live. Fourth task: Make a reminiscence of
the old painting and the golden icons.
5.
Everyone who looks more precisely at the images of the Archangel Gabriel
will notice that its expression changes: from typically masculine,
aggressive expression, it changes into feminine, delicate expression.
Indeed, it is hard to determine the sex of angels. On the other hand, in
modern society there is a tendency to avoid the division of roles. Fifth
task: Present the merging of sexes. The images are created by a computer.
The angel is technically alienated, isolated and then projected on the
background, painted by skilled fingers and fine hand, using a small brush. A
common experience of computer art in order to present the endless
possibility of the copying detail. Sixth task: Make one computer work of
art.
7.
The seventh task is set by itself, only by the bare existence of an angel in
space, which, of course, is also a stand on religion in modern society.
When we look at this sum of tasks, as a small collection of modern art,
“Archangel Gabriel” by Jovan Balov is an expression of a nationally—serial
constructiveness, which is in a computer way connects the historic religious
question with the post modernistic art.
This work of art is an animal of aesthetics, which lays eggs,
gives milk and wool, it is a miniature appliance which is an alarm clock,
calculator and a practical back scratcher. And oddly enough, all these
heterogeneous elements are naturally connected, as if it is the way it
should be. Every art movement, here presented as a task, can take over this
work of art, but there is always the danger of the other six being turned
into an ironic giggle…Completely appropriating several holy bricks of modern
art, Jovan Balov managed to build another tower of esthetics, which seen
from all sides, looks like a fortress torn down in which the artist of today
is found: he can please nobody: esthetes, politicians, theoreticians and
everybody else that follows the trend they prefer at that very moment. The
artist that follows the artistic trends and expressions will quickly
alienate, will distance himself and in that way he is of no interested to
anyone…
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2009
Krusevo ethno town
IMPESSIONS: Berlin Art Scene
2008
Work in Progress - Stuttgart
Brave New World - Berlin
2007
2006
Easy
Transort
2005
Meething the Angel
Edward Lucie Smith
Alian Body
2004
Not in the sky & on the earth
2003
2002
2001
2000
Acud Berlin |
