Man is a social being. One cannot live without the other. Together, they build roads, cities, civilization. The same is true in art. Piano and violin, tenor and soprano, director and actor, black and white swan – all these forms of art have the duet as a mode of creative expression. Even literature, where the artist – the writer – is condemned to solitude, has recorded a brilliant pair: Ilf and Petrov. Never, however, has painting offered such a form. A duet! Marko Kusmuk and Veljko Valjarević have dared to take this revolutionary step. By sharing the canvas, they have shared their dreams, visions, and emotions. In that sharing, they had to be both selfless and cautious, adjusting their feelings to those of the other in the duet – just as it is done in music. Their experiment has opened Pandora's box. The paintings have revealed new horizons, ones that perhaps these two artists would not have reached on their own. They become a kind of riddle, an enigma: who is who on the canvas? But when you look more closely, immerse yourself in their colors and forms, you begin to wonder – is there any point in answering that question at all?

Nenad Jankovic

Photographs by Srdjan Jankovic