Vincent Matijasevic
– Born in 1957 in Chinchina, small town located in the hilly central zone of Colombia and possessor of a dynamic pre-Columbian past, the core of activities Tacurumbí, main leader of ethnic Quimbaya, considered the greatest goldsmith culture of Americas.
– In 1979 Vincent Matijasevic begins researches about engraving on matrixes in cement , looking exploit the soft and smooth beginning of the bindery substances and the ending formidable forged that with them is achieved.
– Researches in it for 10 years.
– In 1980 presents in the “Rafael Lema” room of a Manizalita journal, the first results of this work conformed by a series of 20 engravings titled “Between your Body and Mine”
– In 1981 exposes for the first time and individually in the Colombian’s capital (Bogotá) in the Diner’s gallery, on of the main halls of the country, introducing 20 new engravings that simply titled “cement engraving”.
– In 1982 he returned to exhibit individually in the Diner’s gallery in Bogotá, introducing 25 new cement engravings titled “Retrospective of Cement Engraving”.
in which is a strong interest in the human hand form.
– In 1983 exposes individually for the third time in Bogotá in the GAL A.R.T. hall of the gallerist Adrian Rodolfo Torres, who was based in Germany and brought back to Colombia on his return to Bogotá and exhibition of drawings and engravings of the writer and engraver German “Günter Grass”. Vincent Matijasevic presented in the GAL A.R.T. a new series, of engravings in cement that titled “The Considerations of the Brutal Derivatives of a Such Mr Darwin”.
– In 1984 exposes individually for the fourth time in Bogotá at the club “Los Lagartos” (“The Lizards”) an exclusive club in the capital that brought together the most significant so far of engraving in cement.
– In 1985 sends to The National Artists Hall of Colombia a triptych which included among other images, the central engraving of the series “The Considerations of the Brutal Derivations of a Such Mr Darwin”, triptych which received praise for prominent personalities of national art, as the printer and Cuban critic Galaor Carbonell, the Colombian painter and designer based in Paris Luis Caballero and the writer Antonio Caballero. This later regarding to the national hall and to the participation of Vincent Matijasevic there in wrote:
There are hardly in that hundred exhibitors (“in the national hall”) four or five interesting (which, although it looks, is not few) Vincent Matijasevic who exposes a “triptych” engraving in cement is a drawer and a powerful engraver (semana Magazine, September 1985)
For his part Luis caballero expressed…
“It is Very difficult to judge by only one work, but I believe that when that work really says something although it be just one small or big it feels and seems… I liked the engravings of Vincent Matijasevic (semana Magazine, September 1985)
Galaor Carbonell expressed regarding to the same work:
“works of excellent quality graphics invoice and serious investigative processes.
Techniques and significant as those developed by Vincent Matijasevic with a beauty investigation in cement engraving, with themes that date back to pre-Hispanic past, but, that beyond this reference, have a completed vision updated.” (semana Magazine, September 1985) 1984.
For his part the Spanish critic based in Colombia Francisco Gil Tovar had written two reviews during his first two samples in Bogotá and in some part of them he wrote:
“for the second time he exposes in Bogotá and although only two years have elapsed since the previous occasion, surprises how could pass from the results 1981 to the Smoothes and shapes of today, achieved by engraving in cement that is his, such a his. That is regarded as the inventor of the procedure.”
In this way doing emphasis on the concerns of techniques of Vincent Matijasevic, but leaving uncommented the conceptual core of their concerns, all of which were then rightly pointed Galaor Carbonell in a new sample that Vincent Matijasevic conducted in 1987, in the city of Manizales and that titled “Para Abya-Yala” referring to the term with which the Indians Cunas of Panama designates the American continent, which in their language means “land of full maturity” for this sample Vincent Matijasevic favoured not only by the cement as a bindery core, but, also of ceramics which his engravings passed from the embossment to the Plano graphic printing achieving with this graphics smoothes that brought new scopes to his work .
Carbonell wrote then:
They rarely agree on a single artistic production of splendid experiences of a maturated creativity that is manifests both in the technical exercise as in the argumentative discuss and meaningful. This is the case with the graphic work of Vincent Matijasevic.
1 techniques:
From the point of view of his materials procedures this series images have been developed from the unpublished matrices such us, cement and ceramic plates.
The cement plate it falls within the printing technique of embossment adding to other existing materials traditionally used for such purposes such as wood, linoleum and metal, the cement plate opened by Matijasevic accepts a very dedicated job, with fine details and printing of various colours at the same time, as evidenced by several engravings which evoke the spirit of monotype.
The ceramic plate falls within a part of the Plano graphic printing techniques enriching the existing ones in this gender, such us screen printing lithographic. On the ceramic plate (no the side of the enamel tablet floor of one of the trademarks widely available in our area) Matijasevic ideas a parallel procedure but somewhat opposite to that of lithography, but, the negative areas do not reject the ink, but. Absorb it allowing only the printing of drawing images on the plate with a base that the eliminates the absorption.
2 the ideas.
The thematic references of engravings of Matijasevic are geared to issues of liberation taken at the metaphorical, from pre-Columbian and the conquest time, with pairs of antagonist concepts such us female-male, dominant-dominated cultures-originating imported cultures, visions subsidiaries-hegemonic visions. Almost inevitably it, although in a gradual way the arguments of this artist lead us through characters such as Hernan Cortez, Pizarro or Montezuma, from the sexual history until the current actual political.
That somehow it becomes erotic, thanks for the invention of some figures. They are aerodynamic soft contours, of great naturalness an anatomical graphics. Which seen to arise an ancestral memory that spits up, or create for the first time. It does not matter, because they never forget their ballast atavistic. These extraordinary figures are never separated from his mattered dependence of the plate that emits and despite this seem to be ideograms specifically designed to carry messages. In the hands of Matijasevic, the strange combination of the erotic and social outcomes admirable verisimilitude.
It already has made special contribution as significant as that of the two techniques of engraving above mentioned, especially in a environment like ours that requires creativity that appropriates basic resources to diversify and imagining affront to the poor that argue the lack of material resources to excuse the lack of their creativity, and if such a contribution was not enough, Matijasevic gives us an argument that for collective is important, however, never surrender to the universality the necessary personal content that reaches the most lyrical of each of us ( catalogue exhibition “Para Abya-Yala” in September 1987).
Then referring to the same exposure the anthropologist Italian Giorgio Mario:
Manzini wrote:
Rarely in the Latin-American art the Rivarol saying “voice la nudite” le reste est vetement.
“(behold nudity: the rest is clothing). It has more validity in these engravings commented. So naked and frank is this Indian Vincent Matijasevic as sexual and so caste, so helpless and so powerful so extrapolated from this ethnographic context and so historical that the universe exemplified for him gives an strong impaction who approaches him”.
– in 1984 send to the biennale intergrafik of Germany his engraving in cement “hands”.
– in 1988 the critic Spanish Francisco Gil Tovar proposes Vincent Matijasevic as participant in the exhibition “work in progress” that the diners gallery performed with some of his most significant works of the national youngest plastic being accepted this nomination.
– in 1989 makes further progress in his investigations of engraving with the double set of engravings in cement and engravings in ceramics titled “The rhythms of not” presented in the Rotonda room of the university of Caldas.
-in 1993 starts working at etching engravings with two sets, one of them titled “secs Quimbaya” which presents in the tower residences of the national university in 1992 and another titled “the Quimbaya teat bang ” concluded in 1995 and presented to the public only in 2004.
-in 1994 builds a wooden device capable to hold and present in public, in area of one cubic metre, 40 drawings. Apparatus he calls “the first artisimo” which explores new ways of presentation of the public in two dimensional artwork, which have traditionally assumed that the only criterion offered by the wall, those facing an air decorative annoying to the necessary privacy the artistic. This “first artisimo” introduced him at the art gallery of the university of Caldas.
Since then devotes a lot of work to the pictorial.
In 1994 presents five large-format oil paintings that titled “the pre-Columbian Andes ¿majesty of sexual?” presented at the art gallery of university of Caldas. On this exhibition wrote the architect Alberto Moreno A.
“my surprise increased when contemplating these five paintings, and prove that despite references mythic-religious cultures of the past. Which make allude in his realization Matijasevic does not take hand on the common resource of represent his characters with physiognomy obviously indigenous and adorned and surrounded with all the paraphernalia of objects, symbols and designs in gold or ceramics, created with full wisdom and beauty of these ancestors it is clear that this kind of performances does not interest Matijasevic, then this is the question what is what the artist unravelling from the paintings a legitimate iconography that let us go back to the lives of those ancestors?
I think and I am convinced that what he looks for and finds Vincent Matijasevic, in history is the IDEA. Like this in capital letters.
Which is what makes those women who appear in succession in “women playing Quimbaya” are really Quimbaya and nothing else? The same is valid for four other works, we all refer to the mythical world of our ancestors Indo Americans.
The history as IDEA, is the key of the paintings of Vincent Matijasevic, in this IDEA lies strength and authenticity.”
-in 1996 presents in the tower residences of the national university of Colombia the exhibition of 12 oil painting under the title “at the essences of the earth any loses the right” six months later he is invited by the cultural found coffee (which later would give away to the museum of art Caldas) to present this exhibition again in the city of Manizales.
-In 1999 presents six large formats oil paintings that he titled (“Purisima painting”) Vincent Matijasevic presents six oil paintings that does not reach to understand “at home of the poetry Fernando Mejia” in the celebration of the six hundredth anniversary of the city of Manizales
in 2001 coordinates, conducts curetting and participates as an exhibitor in the pooled sample “Only painting” of the two exhibitions take place in the theatre “fundadores” , the anniversary of the city of Manizales
-in 2001 performed the “drawings of fire” that accompany the book “poems of winter” by Guillermo Arcila Arango. Book published by the university of Caldas.
-in 2002 coordinates, conducts curetting and participates as an exhibitor at the pooled sample.
-in 2003 conducts a series of 52 etchings under the title “a new humanism” (fig 39, 40, 41) digging into them several printing processes that lie at the two levels of etching artwork as embossment engraving on one hand and as engraving in hole on the other hand. Collection presented in the arts gallery and the Rotonda in the university of Caldas on April 2004.
300 drawings without profits being presented consecutively in the art gallery of the university of Caldas and in the gallery de l. Etoile of the Alliance Colombo-Françoise in Manizales. Which suggests a new filing system in the public two-dimensional artwork at the discretion of “big book” which he called “second artisimo” that the book taking advantage of the privacy-advocates, intimacy that is lacking in the presentation of the usual two – dimensional artwork that builds it is carrier basically on the criterion that the wall provides serves.
-as a professor of the university of Caldas in the areas of painting and engravings in 1982.
– in 2002 proposes to the university of Caldas the research “the artist drawing from the overcrowded from the engraving” in which works for one year and that meets concerns about cultural role of the artwork.
like this works in the same research “scandals origins of art”.
he wrote the book “the beginnings of the human I” and “the beginnings of the human II”.
That exhibition was part of his investigations “The artist printer” who was at his time accompanied by a text the same name as the final report text that was poorly received by jurors hired by the university to evaluate it. The text as well as the conceptual details that emerged from him through five attendant text, as well as the erratic evaluative conclusions of these people entrusted to qualify it, are presented on this website in the section texts. The importance of putting an entire scene in this material is implicit in the fact that it marks the theory development that accompanied the difficult birth of the Idea of an “original re- thought” and scudded original touched and original seen with this stems.
It is important to emphasize that the exhibition that accompanied this investigation “the artist printer” and whose title was ¿ towards a new humanism?” Closed graphics processes of the author with the etching. starting an unexpected development to the technical and conceptual simultaneous process mentioned. In the collective masters exhibition at the end of century filed in 2004 in the art museum of Pereira, Vincent Matijasevic after applying a thin coat of bait on a steel sheet He drawn over it, then applied a layer of blue ink on lithographic which would then deposited a thin layer of cream of cheese. The process of putrefaction of the organic substances led to a chromatic development that set at the computer though a scanner prove, after which, followed a digital printing made preserve and maintain an image that (in reality) the unstoppable putrefaction of the “original touched” had already destroyed. With which is synthesized in a quasi-caricature Image what happens to all “original touched” and how to preserve original printing images that achieves the simple passage of time has already destroyed. In this work the named engraved on cheese, followed the discovery of substances that can work and that adapting a monochromatic scanner, interpret this with several colours as it is announced on the front page of this site, to achieve pictorial processes of two times in which shapes and colour are clearly autonomous and independent.
From this later investigative process came “Dibujes (Noise redivivo)” which was presented in the Art museum of Caldas , in an individual sample on November 2006 formed by 40 digital works together with the main text of this theory development. “The original re- thought ”: On that exposition and on that text Octavio Hernandez wrote the article “energy an vigour in Matijasevic “Which are the following paragraphs “Matijasevic confronts his thinking, hard to gnaw with a technique that individual in his career, is becoming a myth. It is the most dissatisfied with the technique can be found. Do not even want to accommodate to it being invented by others or by him. He started experimenting with prints in cement that had an unusual deployment nationally and internationally. He then engraved on the pottery of remembrance grate in his allusions to the Spanish conquest. Now, He treats with computers without leaving anything in the classical area or drawing, after conducting a large series of oil paintings. A feast of technique and creativity. His 40 works are a festival of technique, images and colours. It is a festival of an invented world by the artist, an anatomy that is attributable to certain rules rationalists despite their appearance surreal or expressionist. festival of the mind subjected to unconventional budgets. As if Matijasevic had proposed painting wildlife humanoid of other Worlds. His point of view always aggressive individual and has served as a livelihood so that the perpetrator was judged, apparently to search it and deserve it as a whole “Anti artist” with erotic stamp.
Since his inception in the two-dimensional art, the Caldense artist has been characterized by expressing by voluptuous bodies the fold of some lips, the curve of about breasts, some soft and lost eyes”, out phallic snakes that suggest intertwining other elements of the composition the Picture located at the end of the trail, “women and men” and that is what the artist likes most to expose at all, it is the synthesis of exposure and the rationalist and emotional attitude of the engraver.
Without eroticism, Matijasevic would not be cartoonist and painter, the eroticism in his personal stamp and, despite being a stale Topic, it does so with a personal touch an in this same differs from the most representative of pop artists. When the body for them was no more than fragments taken from newspapers to adorn cold, clear and smooth scenes. The Caldense artist, as in the series “Persons and People” and “death”, makes from greenish black colour a disturbing backdrop for his expressive speech of the “Original Touched” and “The Original seen” on the dramatic fund Sabbath mount a thing of colours of unheard combinations. In 2008 the school of Bellas artes of the university of Caldas (Manizales) in which he Works. Performs the sample “appropriation of spaces” at the museum of art of Pereira participating in this exhibition with five Works entitled “Dibujes Poetic” which writes texts emanating from the perception drawing of pretexts that undergoes some sonority and rhythmic any intention to force syntactic. And then allocate them indiscriminately to any of the original drawings, trying to link a derivation, that does not obvious result at any way “Poetic drawing” consists of a set of 50 drawings and 50 texts and is now developing as a graphic process that is expected to submit shortly to the public.
