Sculpture by the sea
Nenad Milovanović “Full Moon”
When this sculpture exhibition called Sculpture by the sea was first held in 1997 in Australia, as a product of enthusiastic tendencies of the people organizing it, its future was a bit uncertain considering its scale, what part it played and what it meant to the contemporary art scene that it was created for in the first place.
Today, exactly 20 years later, it can be said with certainty, that their visions have come true, seeing that this is currently the biggest exhibition of its kind in the world and has over half a million of visitors during the three weeks it is open to public.
Along Sculpture by the sea, Bondi that is held in Sydney in the spring from mid October to the first week of November, the second exhibition Sculpture by the sea, Cottesloe (2017) is held in Perth on the West Coast of the Australian continent in the period from the 3rd of March to the 20th of March. The fact that our country has, for the first time, its representative at an exhibition of this kind and magnitude that is known for presenting the latest sculptural tendencies, is more than meaningful and is a great contribution to making the Serbian art scene visible in Australia and the world, and with that to bringing us closer to everyone.
The project 7x4 (a series of sculptures) from sculptor Nenad Milovanovic has been one of the 105 works from artists from 27 countries selected for the Bondi 2016 exhibition and with that made Serbia a part of it for the first time in the history of this exhibition.
The sculpture Full Moon from this project, with which Milovanovic chose to present his work to both the artistic as well as to the wider audience in Sydney, has been chosen again to be a part of the upcoming Cottesloe exhibition. As opposed to the Bondi exhibition that shows the works from a hundred authors, the Perth exhibition is much more intimate and smaller in scale since the location (Cottesloe) is not as large as the one in Sydney and with that in mind has a smaller number of artists exhibiting their works (about 80 of them). This only confirms the quality of Milovanovic's work once more.
The title of the series 7x4 comes from the dimensions of the plates that the author found at one storage yard in Belgrade. With them he manipulates and creates his sculptures giving them a new life.
Using these objects found by chance and putting them in function of a main unit that by repetition creates a whole new structure, Milovanovic tries to emphasize the impact of daily coincidences in life as well as in creativity, amplifying the value of something that is at first glance simple and unusable, and making it crucial.
Insisting on the raw material and allowing it to speak is something that is recognizable in Nenad's work. By making contact with the iron plates, free and inspired with the possibilities of exploring the form and shape yet still bound by the geometrically defined material, the author tries to present his idea by playing with opposites of the clearly defined starting point and endless possibilities of creation visible in the abstract forms of his work. Rectangular plates end up being endlessly combined and modulated into unique wholes.
With the spontaneous and accidental creation of the new narative as well as with the unconscious part often relating to creation itself, the title Full Moon implies the dynamic of the creation process.
Representing the end of a cycle, full moon completely corresponds to this work as a final product with all the phases of development that led to it, where the author takes his own vision from the idea, through the competition and new experiences in Australia, to the final finished work that really does sparkle a little bit.
Like its reference taken from nature, Nenad's Full Moon both receives light and reflects it, doing so in a subtle and symbolic manner, reminding us of the role that the moon itself had ages ago (especially the full moon). In absolute darkness, before modern lighting, but also in todays time, full moon comes as a natural source of light, a guide that by shining in its full glow manages to, with just enough precision, light and show the right way.
Art historian Teodora Jeremic
"7x4" is a modular series of works, that I started in 2015 and finished in 2016.
The material that I stumbled upon as I was working – iron plates, has inspired me and made possible for me to explore form and shape, and to, through this geometrical material, try and present the idea that I had in abstract form.
Coincidence is often an inspiration for artists, as well as seeing beauty in something that someone wouldn’t even consider looking at. The material itself can be food for thought, like in this case.
Gradually, a new reality is made from raw material through which an artist reflects his idea that made him think and imprint his own personal motifs into it.
In my case the sculpture is raw and rough, naturally brought into a state of patina, without colour, which is the same in my previous works.
This “raw” esthetic is bound to my upbringing when I was surounded by building materials that are still with me through the form of my sculptures.
The name for this series of works comes from the very dimensions of said iron plates that I found at one of Belgrade’s scrapyards; with that I want to show the importance that those everyday situations have on creativity and capability of being aware of them, because without that and the dimensions of that material this series of works wouldn’t exist.