WHIRLING AND FLASHES OF REALITY

Exhibition
Admir Mujkic: Journey, prints, 2001, Sarajevo

Foreword of the Catalogue, dr. Fehim Hadzimuhamedovic

WHIRLING AND FLASHES OF REALITY

Taking the World into Oneself - Disseminating Oneself into the World

IIIII

The very characteristic, but in a sense universal, exhibition of the prints by Admir Mujkic grew out of the co-influence of its stimulus and general theme - whirling of the dervish dance, and the space of Kuršumli-medresa (fusnota: Islamic high-school in Sarajevo), used for the exhibition Its result is of the third quality, the one that outdoes both the symbolic and the spatial effects of the prints themselves. In this way, the exhibition brings up the problems and suggests a solution to some of the basic issues of art in its contemporary _expression. Those refer to the structure of artistic _expression. Namely, the academic graphic artist, Admir Mujkic, produces and exhibits prints that articulate and re-inaugurate the transcendental level of the art work. From the aspect of contemporary art, this is the continuation of the suppressed level. Gilo Dorfles identifies this level with the demand for transrational _expression. He says, "In order (for art) to truly reach the form of communication that surpasses intellectual conceptions and links to a certain epoch, the influence of the ‘trans-rational’ idea is necessary. This idea can be joined with the fictitious idea - Bildhafte Denken - that is placed in the heart of the symbolic component of every artistic creation. In the near future this symbolic quality of art - lacking today in many accomplishments of contemporary art…will reappear…" (General History of Art, Leonarde Arte, Milan, 1997)

IIIII

The principle of whirling in the dance of dervishes has the basis of the formal system in articulation and establishment of the vertical and microcosmic axis. All of Admir Mujkic’s prints are cloaked in the principle of whirling and domination of the Axis Mundi; the artistic _expression of the vertical is found in every part of each single print, either literally or as a visible warp. Through the axes and the very generative nature of whirling, the entire world appears - in one place. The smallest specific component of the world and the world itself, thus, appear. The entire world is absorbed into the center of a whirling - the entire world is scattered from the center of whirling. Or, in the very process or the experience of whirling, the one who whirls absorbs the whole world into himself and simultaneously expands into the whole world and its infinity.

Within the print itself, the world, i.e. its image is created in a certain inverse relation: The active image is located in the central part of the picture, as a picture within a picture, usually marked by a separate frame. In this way a larger picture extends to the very edges of the print as a kind of frame and fore-picture. As a rule, it contains schematism (outline and indication) of anthropomorphic figures with their appropriate surroundings, abstractly articulated and artistically presented with inert flat shapes and colors. Figuratively speaking, the anthropomorphic landscape of stony features spreads throughout the whole picture, but is insignificant - it is merely an incentive. A man is, actually, just a starting-point. Because within that ‘stony’ landscape there is an ‘opening’, a ‘cleft’, a ‘hole’ in the picture made of lace and decorative structure - of the pure immaterial quality, as the real origin of the particular print. So, another side of subtle qualities can be found in the midst of crude and material one-sidedness. The principle given is clear - the external world is geometric and material, static, monovalent, schematized, without real attributes of life, and a man is present only as an outline. The inner, real world, of the moved and dynamic, of the filled and symbolic, that gives away the attributes of life is articulated in the inner frame as a direct reflection of the whirling itself- of the man and the dervish who whirls around himself, around and within the entire world. Within that inner frame, inner images appear, a remarkable display of life, in which a flower, a chariot, a horse and people, in scenes of life which is beautiful, have the same structure and quality. This quality of the common is a central characteristic that implies at the overcoming of the material and external, phenomenon and the tendency towards unity and the oneness of God. Spirituality, thus, appears as a logical symbolic state of the prints that are logically created through the artistic _expression of the essential serenity.

IIIII

With the formality of the vertical, that is the basis of the composition of a print, the quality of the picture in the inner frame is based on the rhythmic repetition, multiplication and expansion of artistic elements of the drawing and the line. That rhythm, that aims to expand in all directions through its artistic structure of lacy and uncolored drawing, creates an ornamental expression. This ornament, flourishing expressions and attributions of the living, is clearly a reflection of the rhythmical whirling of the dervish dance, but more in a symbolic expression. Because, all together, the prints do not tend towards expressive representation of the mere physical movements of the dance by artistic elements such as lines and surfaces…The sensuality of the whirling is articulated here as a primarily pure symbol that is expressed by the delicate lacy drawing. The accomplished rhythm - ornament - symbol…is the fullness and true essence of the world; the world which, according to Admir Mujkic, cannot be a projection of the empty Descartesian space. But, paradoxically, with its substantial fullness, space itself, in a sense, becomes insignificant.

IIIII

The whirling of the dervish absorbs the entire world into himself and spreads onto him. Although it has to appear in some way within the picture, the whirling is neither the aim nor the theme - it is not a picture one lives in, it is simply a way to reach some other pictures - a new and unusual and miraculous view of the world. In the whirling, the world is freed from attributes of weight and time, an unseen world opens itself. The scientific experiments with whirling, moving through a horizontal thorus, confirm the reflex of weightlessness. The prints of Admir Mujkic, actually the inner ‘picture of a lacy world, that appears within the picture’ is precisely like that, freed from the _expression of weight and formal obligations of creating a picture.

IIIII

Let us model certain inverse expressions of the prints. Let us move towards outside and not into the depths of the phenomenon and its image. Let us imagine, show ourselves a procedure of finding the positive, if we grasp the image of the print as its negative. That is, what is the positive of the world which was imprinted by the hand and soul of the artist, the colors and shapes of the print? If we succeed in this, we shall suddenly see a remarkably ordinary and remarkably beautiful world! Above all, the world of fullness! In the fulfilled world - a world of fullness, there is no place for horor vacui. The imprint of the substantial world is infinitely diverse and leveled. Numerous scales of imprints are proof of its fullness. The ornament is a natural state of the substantial world and can also be understood as its decoration. In such a world, graphic art has a wide range of diverse expressions. It imprints reality through the technique of weak and strong contrasts, vanishing contrasts, total and totally absent contrasts, which take away the surface level of the picture, etc.

IIIII

When different discovered levels of phenomena are arranged into an ordered system, they create esoteric principles of the phenomenon - a certain metaphysics of the phenomenon. This also applies to the artistic process of created prints and the grasped images, as well as for the used graphic material, the applied technique, etc. In such an esoteric depiction of the world, the print and its elements (form, color, line, etc.) are not auxiliary means for symbolic articulation. They themselves are equally valuable symbols - phenomena that are meditated upon and accepted as any other phenomenon. In this way, the border between life and art is erased, formal means and techniques are not outside of the world, they are its equally valid parts with equal rights. In other words, all the facts of the animate and inanimate worlds become united. In that sense, there are indications that Admir Mujkic meditates upon the print itself - line, surface, color…The organization or composition of the picture can also be connected to the esoteric principles, i.e. image composition: Outside-inside, abstract-concrete, empty-full, shape-ornament, surface-line…these are only some of the dual characters that can be discerned in the basis of also dual composition, in which, for instance, the basis of the composition - upper-lower, is balanced around a horizontal axis. The composition principle here implies the ‘upper’ as external, but abstract and geometric, as opposed to the ‘lower’ as internal and fulfilled.
IIIII

The act of artistic creation is made up of identifying an extraordinary state of balance within the creator, i.e. between the creator and the world. Finding this state, "peering into oneself", "reaching internal landscapes", "waking up in a dream", or finding the thin line "between dream and reality" is an outstanding effort of the artist.

According to their relation to the world and the achievement of that extraordinary harmony, the methods of the dervish and the artist are similar. The dervish, who finds inner balance and harmony with the universe covers the everyday and sensory worlds with it. The artist searches for a balance between his inner self and the outside world. Admir Mujkic establishes and compares two experiences of the world, understanding and acceptance. Sometimes it is more difficult to overlap two experiences.

‘Traveling and searching’ indicates the phenomenological character of the created prints, where the ‘picture within a picture’ is the main concept. Such a journey opens up infinite spaces of everyday phenomena and living itself, undoubtedly linked to the cultural principle of Bosnia and its Islamic character. Researching phenomena and their images, Admir Mujkic notices an infinite leveling of phenomena, but still thematically dwells on the motif of fairy-tale and myth. The very technique of a ‘journey’ denotes a certain ‘vertical movement’ from the surface of the picture through deep levels of the phenomenon. But… it is also possible to travel ‘horizontally’ through one single phenomenal level, through the shape of the tip of a leaf or the nuance of a color. Here, the ‘journey’ is a denotation for a way of pondering about the world and artistic activity at the same time. The verticality of the ‘picture within a picture’ or ‘picture through a picture’ denotes canceling of the attributions of time. The anthropomorphic aspect of a man is the first image and the first level that is eliminated. It is present only for the witnessing of that elimination. It is the interior of the man that is important.

IIIII

One metaphor intrudes itself in the unraveling of Admir Mujkic’s prints: A certain metaphysical roller (a substitute for the graphic roller and press) absorbs and reflects light by whirling. In the flashes of light, of simultaneous birth and death, continuance and discontinuance, evanescence and eternity… pictures are born, imprinted and reflected. In such creation, organically lined doubled shapes of the prints themselves straighten up and dance, complemented by the primary and eternal rhythm of daybreak. With their light they provoke birth and opening up of locked spaces of darkness… Who possesses an internal eye, like Admir Mujkic does, can see images of a wondrous, fairy-tale world, which calls out with unveiled holism.






Sarajevo, April 2001 Dr. Fehim Hadžimuhamedovic