Milivoj Bijelić
Denkbild strikte Observanz, 2002
serigraphy, oil on canvas
85 x 155 cm
MG-7019

Milivoj Bijelić (1951) is an intriguing artist who absorbs conceptual, primary-analytical and monochrome tenets of High Modern art in painting (Blue, 1976) and minimalist installations with postmodern correlations from the New Image Painting onwards. This characterizes the artist’s cognitive execution aesthetic and materiality of the medium, which is observable ever since his primary-analytical phase. He obtained a degree in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (Š. Perić), and attended postgraduate studies at the Nationaal Hoger Instituut vorr Schone Kunsten in Antwerp (1977 – 1978). He was an associate in Lj. Ivančić’s and N. Reiser’s Master’s Workshop (1978 – 1980), and has lived and worked in Düsseldorf since the 1980s. Bijelić establishes his own sign Homo rebus that he shapes into an enigmatic pictogram, a paraphrase of Da Vinci’s man with outstretched limbs which he modulates in paintings, painting-objects and installations (45th Venice Biennale, 1993). This sign is the measure of all things, and transformed into an artistic matrix it is an image of the figure and the figure of an image, a code and a sign of the human figure in general. (paraphrase, J. auf der Lake). The painting Denkbild strikte Observanz / Thinking, Strict Observation (2002) characterizes Bijelić’s oeuvre to this day based on the philosophical and sociological precepts that the artist conveys directly. It is a raster image with an enigmatic decoration, a honeycomb-shaped matrix – stamps of Homo rebus and a horizontal floating figure of a man above them made of conical matter of colour which, when observed from the side, becomes a vibrant echo, representative in appearance. He has had numerous solo exhibitions in Croatia and abroad (Zagreb, Düsseldorf, Bochum, Munich, Ljubljana, Cologne), and his works are part of many recent collections and museums. He participated in the Biennial exhibitions in Saõ Paolo in 1982, Cairo in 1994, and his current art project Et in Barabaria Ego finds its home in Bribir.

Text: Željko Marciuš, museum consultant of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb