Petar Sibinović

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August 16th – September 2nd

The exhibition of Petar Sibinović titled “The Reality of the Imperceptible – Drawings and Sculptures” represents the attempt to find the plastic potential in sculpture as well as to define the topics and narratives that could be attached to these states. The artist directs his interest towards the volatile state of materials and attempts to redefine and regain control over form. Out of this reason, the artist often uses materials which are considered untypical in the sculptural field that also do not allow easy manipulation, but can be modelled under specific circumstances. In this way, the investigation of the malleable potential starts with the material itself, however, it is always tied to the possible meaning that the material implicitly carries. This dual passage in the end leads to a ‘good match’ in the sense that the very experimentation with the given materials leads to developing the necessary skills to manipulate the material, and the produced forms into – language.
Apart hands on experimentation with materials, Sibinović directs his attention towards investigating the nature and the process of modelling outside the influence of humans such as: entropy, degeneration, hybridisation, crystallisation, sedimentation, condensation and so on. These processes in terms of plasticity often result in lively vital forms which the artist wants to preserve and apply in his work. The nature of these processes and the physical attributes of the materials imply a specific method of work that needs to be structured, made conscious and mastered. In that way the goal of the entire process apart from establishing an authentic ‘plastic thought’ is to map the path of artistic expression.
Our senses register only a fraction of the existing reality and the vast area of the imperceptible, invisible and silent is left to the imagination. It is the place where the need to create images and forms respectively is encountered, as well as the need to experience novelty and that which has not yet been discovered. In this place in reality, but still removed from our senses, is precisely where Petar Sibinović constructs his own relationship between form and meaning. The imperceptible world becomes a part of the imaginative space, a place where all of his work can find its place. Drippings made of melted plastic or a cloth hardened by acrylic paint or polyester are no more redundant formal elements. Their formality can be effortlessly placed into an area of imperceptible space that has made itself visible only through a strange set of circumstances. In this way, ordinary blotches of paint get cosmic or mythical proportions; abstract patterns made from mixing water and oil transform into a microscopic image of matter and finally the banality of representation moves to the space and time of the preconception of the first viable forms.
On the other hand, Petar Sibinović investigates elementary processes in nature and the appearance of different materials under the microscope. These abstract forms which are at the same time absolute real, have no other representational strength than representing themselves; they become a blank space for projecting all that content which we haven’t been able to visualise through our own experience. The dual quality of both the abstract and the real in this way becomes a laboratory for reflecting psychological content for every individual viewer. In a world where everything that exists must have a form, and therefore meaning, abstract imagery allows constant and novel markings and readings, whereas the only condition for this is the very vitality of form which sees life and the world as succulent and magnetically attracts us.
During the production of these works, the collection of a large amount of information from different scientific and artistic fields is paramount. The synthesis of the acquired information occurs during the production of the work and thus becomes a sort of a tissue that connects all used sources. Petar Sibinović’s sculptures and drawings are made by simulating the creation of life, and by following the principal characteristics and functioning of the microscopic world, they bring new formal accomplishments into life which reside on the boundary between abstraction and representation. In this case, we can understand the micro-references as an immaterial state which precedes the formation of new live matter – at the same time a display of the on-going process.

Text: Radoš Antonijević, PhD
Photo: Ivana Milev