An exhibition inspired by the poetry of Milica Špadijer

What does it look like when a poem is painted? From this question arose the idea not to wait for the answer in the realm of theory but to find an artist, pose the question, and see what happens. The artists I chose happened, by chance, to be women. I was deeply interested in how they perceive my poetry, and then I wanted to see it myself. Although different, the works of Maria, Iva, Milena, Jovana, Suzana, and Irena embrace my poems, providing them with several important supports. The first and most significant is that the collection can be read and fully experienced as it was envisioned. Iva Kuzmanović paints an ancient motif in the colors of the Šar Mountains. Death in Arcadia, just like in the New Cemetery, is inevitable but not indescribable. It is captured in a way that makes its nature clear, yet simultaneously removes the fear of it. The reflection of the sublime and painful comes through the work of Maria Šević, who continues her series on volcanoes started with Night Ascent. A figure, hidden while observing an eruption, knows, just like Silvia, that something around her smells of death—but also of poetry. Safe yet confronted with terrifying fire, she is forever changed. Death then flows into the hearth in Suzana Vulović's work, which here has an opposing value. The hearth is ancestral and eternal, and must never be extinguished or confirm the lurking death. The Triptych Death and the Hearth provides three possible variations in terms of color and darkness, which ultimately yields to the reddish, confirming the perspective of resurrection. An afternoon and an early morning are the settings for Snakes and Autobiographies in the works of Irena Kuzmanović. Another triptych, 17:55, plays with the idea of duality by placing the words of the poem Snake in the central part, while on the sides are two opposites—one representation escaping or closing its eyes, and the other chasing or patiently waiting. The poem Autobiography, affixed to the glass of the work 04:49, confirms two things: the night is darkest before dawn, but there is no day that has not broken. The representation of that next day, disturbingly calm, is found in the work of Milena Vukosavljević. A seaside landscape or rather a corner—one door and sheets standing motionless and spread out. Behind them is the world described in Montenegrin poems of the Šar Mountains, primarily the poem Sea, but it is also clear that this is our old house, with the hospital, Lake Skadar, and Danilovgrad nearby. Through the scene of the captured moment, a whole life unfolds, behind the sheets, behind the door, behind the memories. Finally, the only sculptural work is aptly connected to the poem Transfiguration. It is a bust of the poetess—where my skin was once imprinted, now it is burned metal. But skin replaced by metal remains forever young, forever read. If in the poem He Who Remained Without Someone/tragically quickly became someone else, after the exhibition Mountains and Cemeteries, the one who succeeds in finding people who see him, hear him, and understand what he does even to the moment of creating new art, slowly and beautifully becomes someone new, with joy—forever transformed by closeness with many others.

Milica Špadijer