Tour de France in London

London is more and more becoming a city of cyclists. But an unusual group of Croatian cy-clists is joining Londoners in the heart of the Square Mile. They are taking part in Broadgate’s Summer of Sport Season and celebrating the UK leg of the Tour de France. Do not worry that that you will miss them, they are racing only in the sculptor’s imagination, but remain firmly fixed to the ground throughout their display at Broadgate. This lively group of loveable contestants in brightly coloured tops and bikes are a bunch of ordinary citizens, not sporty types. Looking at this group of sculptures you feel that they just happened to be there to raise a smile on your face when we look into their faces and observe how they hold a tight grip on

the non-existent handle bars. These sculptures are very typical of the oeuvre of the artist Vasko Lipovac (1931-2006) who specialised in playful and humorous figurative sculptures, instantly recognisable in their simplified forms and painted in bold colours. These cyclists are part of his broader theme of sportsmen and women created in his studio in Split. A town famous in the UK for the magnificent palace of the Emperor Diocletian which has inspired many British artists and also the town of the Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanišević, who inspires many tennis players.

On your Bike, Go Go Croatian Art in the City of LondonVasko Lipovac Cyclus at Broadgate, City of London July — September

— Flora Turner-Vučetić

“If I am not to win,

let me at least be noticed.”

One would expect that the artist’s interest will be drawn relatively often to sport, a human activity so dynamic, so full of motion, and typical for the complex and

diverse relations among the participating figures. Still, this “important minor affair” seldom inspired the artists to take part in contests and races by means of the brush or the chisel.The content is contest, recognizable at the same time as a form of entertainment, as well a symbol for the struggle for life. The search is at the same time a form of relaxation. Plan und unpre-dictability, beauty and disappointment; and art itself as a form of play. Serious, but still frank in a childish way, simply because through play, both as artistic subject and deed, great truths can be expressed. Just how often is a great artist himself a great child? The ability to express the purity of playfulness is a privi-lege, which, almost without exceptions, gives positive results.On the other hand, it is often necessary to follow a form of reduction that is based on experience, in order to make visible the elementary, the basic principle, the origin of every play. Lipovac never renounced this ludic aspect, even if he avoided remaining at the surface, where play would be its own purpose. On the contrary, the play became for him a method of revealing his own world. In dealing with sport he managed to reach for the extreme, to scratch beyond the surface, and to expose man with all his faults and virtues, doubts and traumas, as well as to express the sincere joy of living. Finding beauty in simplicity, he succeeded in bringing in witticism and irony into the story, with a lot of sympathy for the somewhat clumsy cyclists.Depicted is an amateur race, seen by a professional artist and a connoisseur in the true sense of the word. In his large body of work, Vasko Lipovac has developed a personal style, a form of poetics where the descriptive and the stylized co-exist brilliantly, aspiring so to a form which will retain its connection with the ambiance reflected, and to an aspect of figuration where, through the means of visual reduction, a figure becomes a sign.The brightness and the light of the South call for a clarity of vision, for a human warmth which accomplishes to find greatness in the smallest of things. Therefore, his sailors and wedding couples, saints and promenaders are reduced to a basic framework, illuminated by the Mediterranean, and filled with a gladness which can turn into melancholy at any given moment. The theme is reiterated in numerous reliefs and sculptures, always with a streak of the curious, constantly retaining certain freshness in the way the artist develops his stories of the simple and the ceremonial, elevating the hum-drum and the intimate on a pedestal. Thus, his sailors are deck boys and stately captains at the same time.In formal treatment single figures and groups are identical. St. Sebastian doesn’t differ from the apostles systematically grouped around the Lord’s Supper in a tendency towards order, a solemn stillness, with only a trace of motion. The new Cyclists series is a further development, created through the bearing between the single units and the group.Lipovac builds a form from the pure silhouette of a driver bent over his bicycle, creating/suggesting velocity, through the means of amassing and distending the numerous circles

- the wheels of the vehicles, which, in themselves, create an interesting rhythm of rotation, with the unceased revolving energy being transmitted further on to the driver. The sum of this individual effort, of the single magnetic lines, defines the intensity of movement which permeates the group.The introduction of the idea of movement isn’t simply a neat wittiness on Lipovac’s side, but an important development in the topical layer of his work. Formerly, Lipovac restricted him-self to a sympathetical depiction of the past, looking back on events, situations and persons from a time gone-by, whereas with the Cyclists he places his characters in a position which unites the past and the present, leaving an eye directed to the future. In other words, the dimension of time is introduced.

In his large body of work, Vasko Lipovac has developed a personal style, a form of poetics where the descriptive and the stylized coexist brilliantly, aspiring so to a form which will retain its connection with the

ambiance reflected, and to an aspect of figuration where, through the means of visual reduction, a figure

becomes a sign.

text by Stanko Špoljarić

Observing the figures, we long to know the score too. We become supporters. Lipovac has already chosen the winner. Keeping his mind’s eye on the great, exhausting races through Europe, he has already imagined his runners, chosen the one with most luck, skill and, of course, the fastest one. A story is developed where one awaits the outcome with excitement. It is possible that, among the anonymous drivers, there is one with the passion and endurance of the masters of this sport, of the legends like Fausto Coppi, or the contemporary Indurain. Forming his heroes, Lipovac is bound to have thought of the above-mentioned.Still, his race lacks the tempo of the great European Tours; it is the race of the simple man. And the cyclist is a symbol of the enduring driver, who amasses kilometres, aiming for victory, for happiness eventually.These are not participants in a race lasting a couple of days, but in one that repeats itself during one’s life. This is not en-tertainment, but an unending struggle for success, one that doesn’t always end with laurel wreaths. Lipovac has, con-forming to his personal formative principles, renounced all portrait traits, but stylizing the face and thoroughly purifying the volume, given expression, mood, shown even the lust for victory. Through the severity and consistence of the pebble, he managed to bring across a large number of messages, so that one recognises not only those participants of the race who bring themselves into fully it, and to whom defeat means tragedy, but also those who always end up satisfied, and who bring a kind of competitive spirit into the battle, as well as those who are taking part just for the sake of it.They all appear on the same stage, but are completely dispa-rate in their roles, each with his own thoughts and degree of engagement. Lipovac manages to develop a sports scene, but doesn’t define it at a single level of perception. Even if this would be fully sufficient for a complete understanding of the subject matter, he doesn’t exhaust himself in it. Therefore, artistic motives aside, it is no accident that Lipovac chose the cyclists for his subject. Ahead of them lays a trip full of uncer-tainties, the victory itself being a kind of search for purpose, even if some have taken the road without any preconceptions. And the group?Is it a company ready to lend a helping hand, or does it see in each participant a form of disagreeable competition? Is the single competitor stronger because of being in a group, or is he endangered from it? Questions pose themselves, and show that the race we’re observing isn’t a banal pastime, but that it opens all the complexity of the relations of the imagined road. There is, actually, a genuine track on which Lipovac places the figures, but it is only a segment of that which awaits to be attained and conquered.By means of cohesion of visual organisation, Lipovac gave tactility to this race-track, so that one feels that the partici-pants aren’t haphazardly placed, but that the intervals are ac-tive, equally important as the sculptures themselves, at times so compressed that the bodies contact, but still remaining opened for a new start. Along the track, the density of space constantly varies, from concentrated driving in pairs, to the loner who stands off from the crowd, as if not to notice it. This enables the author to leave the various interpretations of the outcome open. Although not a sculptor who would give much thought to the psychological dissection of figures, he succeeds in creating from the somewhat typical (not as the result of cre-ative exhaustion, but, more likely, of the pertinency of style),

the spark of the individual through dialogues and positioning.The charmingly sculpted faces, with just outlined eyes, mous-taches, lips, that have all undergone a slightly geometrical treatment, result in a jovial appearance, underlined by a strong chromatic component. The colour here isn’t a supple-ment to form, one that would simply enrich it, but an equal and integral element of the sculpture, enhancing the splen-dour of the whole. Lipovac paints his racers with immense phantasy. Bright and chromatically complex, their garment could be the last cry of fashion. The structuring of colours corresponds to the diversity of national banners.The same could be said of the division in stripes: Lipovac uses them in diversity, not simply in order to demonstrate the numerous combinations possible, but to achieve a kind of chromatic harmony. We are speaking here of a sonority which allows room for the minute surfaces (for instance the details of the cap), which are necessary to make the great volumes more prominent. At times, his colour is aggressive, conforming thus to the common notion of sport, as well as luminous to the point where, if it wasn’t in the hands of such a colour-sensitive master as Lipovac, it would verge on the tasteless.Lipovac intentionally toys on this borderline, because sport isn’t a subject characterised by timidity; it has to be obtrusive, and this is achieved here through the garish noise of the gar-ment. The artist conforms to a show-off taste: “If I am not to win, let me at least be noticed.”It is perhaps somewhat paradoxical that Lipovac, who consid-ers the pebble, or more precisely, its indentedness, an ideal, should raise such a chromatic temperature. Still, colour is used here in its basic form, and through its dynamics and the qualities of light, its impasto and ductus, bound directly to form. What we have here are pure surfaces of red, blue and violet, with occasional achromatic touches brought in as a kind of repose from the fully saturated colour.Lipovac uses the garment to show that his is a race of individ-ual contestants, not national teams. Each participant wears a T-shirt differing at least slightly from the others. True, they all conform to the same fashion, but only because Lipovac creates within the related, constantly adding along the horizontal axis, as if this rhythm would raise the speed of the race. This motion could be the finishing sprint as well as a slight acceleration in the mild, wavy shape of a plain. Colour accompanies the expressive anatomy of the figure. Lipovac closes his figures in a block, from, or in which, the extremities assume the shape of a column, with an accent on the characteristically shaped fists.This basic outline follows the growth of the whole body, and the bodily parts, formed as a unique mass, shape a synthesis of the organic and the geometric, so that underneath the cy-lindrical, spherical form, one feels the pulse of life.Lipovac determines particular surfaces by chromatic shifts, where the sharp border of colour is linked with the softness of the silhouette.

Still, his race lacks the tempo of the great European Tours;

it is the race of the simple man. And the cyclist is a symbol of

the enduring driver, who amasses kilometres,

aiming for victory, for happiness eventually.

Just how often is a great artist himself a great child?

The ability to express the purity of playfulness is a privilege, which, almost

without exceptions, gives positive results.

The precision of work, the utmost diligence, removes these polyurethane or wood constructed figures from reality. They are bound to the racing-track, but removed from the ground. The refined shaping of the surface accentuates the material, but at the same time, through the somewhat neutral action of the hand, which is in itself a sort of renunciation of handwriting, the ob-ject loses its realness. This is a space, which Lipovac reserved for himself, of a specific figuration, which could remind an absent minded viewer of a doll or a toy. Therein lies the very strength of his expression, one that doesn’t shy away from developing, or contracting, a never declining poeticality, and which, due to its stylization and cheerful colouring, seemingly departs from a form of visual arts exhausted by intellectualism. Because truth, contrary to the common belief, can often, given the right form of creativity, be attained in a deeper sense if the author decides to be direct, and develops a kind of visual scene that touches a sincerity of viewing which one tends to forget with the passing of time. Lipovac unites the initial flash of natural talent with an experience of life and the arts. His primary postulate is clarity, which is not diminished even by the throng of the cyclists.They invite us to move around them, take different perspec-tives, and even though they intersect at points, the clarity of the concept is in no way disrupted. It would be no surprise if the cyclists were saluted on their way by sailors, greeted by the newlyweds, or if they took the road beside which the church consecrated to St. Sebastian stands.

The circle of the bicycle wheel that symbolises Vasko Lipovac’s latest cycle can also be interpreted as an orbit of all of his previous artistic experiments and interests; it is not a static,

closed circle, but a symbolic cycling wheel moving forward.

Cyclus or the Theory

of the Weel

Cyclus (ancient Greek: “wheel”, “ring” or “circle”) is an obvious and precise title for what is displayed at the Art Pavilion’s current Vasko Lipovac exhibition.

Around sixty sculptures of cyclists “caught” in their typical poses represent an imaginary race, thus creating a peculiar

“puzzle-like” project that is complete only when each sculp-ture/part of the puzzle fits into its previously scripted place. Alongside with sculptures, additional drawings and a graphic map complete the thematic cycle. Therefore, all the phases of creation of a wholesome artistic idea have come full circle. Vasko Lipovac is not an artist prone to trendy changes and drastic shifts. On the contrary, he aspires to connect and in-tertwine all the past stages of his work. If you look back at his earlier work, it is not utterly wrong to say that this new cycle is actually an old theme revised, or rather continuation of an old athletes cycle that Lipovac, always enriched with new experiences, has perpetually been drawn to.

Moreover, the old-new duality has been another constant of Lipovac’s artwork. If a pictogram or a graphic symbol were to define his career, it would be a logotype of ecological in-dustrial objects: three rotating arrows symbolising recycling, making a perfect circle. A cycle.The latest exhibition at the Art Pavilion can be seen as an estuary of the earlier tributaries and thematic flows, as well as a spring of a fresh creativity and inspiration. There is a peculiar characterisation in the cyclists’ physiognomies that has been present in Lipovac’s artwork ever since the 1980’s. It started with the early 1980’s drawings that later triggered a gallery of new characters: a series of voluptuous women, sailors, captains, bishops and, finally, athletes. This idea con-tinued up to a recent, very successful cycle of so-called “three-dimensional painting” or “high-relief sculpture”. A formal flattening and a minimalist stylisation of the repeating “faces” have a somewhat depersonalising effect, which was also at

text by Zlatko Gall

the core of the geometrical “cones” cycle. The artist’s lucid play with a minimalist “detail” which defines the personality of each cyclist (traditional cycling caps and “expression” in the eyes) reflects the traces of experiences with sculptures of bishops, saints and athletes. Although a voluminous form of the cyclists is unique, it stems from some of the artist’s earlier sculptural cycles, such as the statues of divers or the exquisite figurines of an erotic mini-cycle.Lipovac has always been a master of variations on a theme and creating a variety of unique characters by minimal inter-ventions into a self-imposed canon of total reduction. Per-haps the best example of such “exercises in style” is his cycle of St Blaise’s sculptures. However, even these sculptures seem plain in comparison with his cyclists. The reason they have brought a breath of fresh air to his usual creative process is they are not self-sufficient figures anymore, but parts of a sculptural jigsaw puzzle. The exhibition does not present a collection of separate sculptural variations (like St Blaise’s sculptures), but a thematic unity of a cycling race. This does not mean that each sculpture is not an autonomous artistic entity, but that the composition is more than just the sum of its parts. Finally, humour and childish playfulness have always been the essence of Lipovac’s work. By introducing the concept

of a coherent whole, the artist achieves multiple goals. This outstanding artwork takes over the monumental space of Art Pavilion effortlessly due to the artist’s ingenious idea to frame the sixty sculptures by constructing a simple “runaway”, or a unifying platform below cyclists’ feet that keeps them to-gether, rather than scattered around the pavilion. However, by making a viewer an active participant in discovering various details and perspectives of a cycling “race”, the artist remains free to adapt the composition to every space, thus creating the artwork that is ever changing and new. Indeed, the sculptures of cyclists become “Lego bricks” in the artist’s hands that can be reassembled, reconnected and played with incessantly. The circle of the bicycle wheel that symbolises Vasko Lipo-vac’s latest cycle can also be interpreted as an orbit of all of his previous artistic experiments and interests; it is not a static, closed circle, but a symbolic cycling wheel moving forward.

If a pictogram or a graphic symbol were to define his

career, it would be a logotype of ecological industrial

objects: three rotating arrows symbolising recycling, making a perfect circle.

A cycle.

A long time ago, in the fifties, ’57, ’58, ’59 (I don’t know the exact year), you and Petlevski had an exhibition in York, En-gland. How important was that exhibition to you at the time?

Very important! After the Academy, Petlevski and I were accepted into the Master Class of Krsto Hegedušić. Today, I find it inestimable. An inestimable event, inestimable exci-tement. I don’t know what could compare today. It was very exciting, with a lot of desire and expectation, since those really were people, not just Krsto Hegedušić, but people who had already left: Šime Perić, Boris Kalin, Boris Dogan, Ferdinand Kulmer. You know, when you start enumerating, you always forget some one. I’d be sorry if I forgot someone, I wouldn’t want that.

Before Zagreb, there was Kotor.Could we say that Kotor shaped you and your opus in visual arts? Both in content and form?

Stuff I didn’t think about for thirty or more years has been coming back to me recently. The older you get, the deeper you get into memories. Somewhere in your head, you open drawers which you believed to be closed, empty. But they contain a lot: childhood, neighborhood, family, which was very numerous, thank God.

When you think of your childhood now, which images appear?

Now I’m trying to eliminate everything that was unpleasant, ugly. I put all of that to one side and try to collect what binds me to Kotor, to that neighborhood. I’m trying to somehow re-live what I once experienced or lived through. As I said, many things are concealed in drawers. It seemed I didn’t note it, but now that I’ve started thinking about it, I see many things: processions, sailors, girls, sea - it isn’t a big sea, but I thought it was very big. I don’t want to describe Boka now, because much has been said and learned about that beautiful place; for me, however, Boka - and especially the Bay of Kotor, which was the closest to me - was something beautiful always in front of me, and very probably the source of a lot of things I used un - consciously, without knowing where I got them, until these late thoughts kicked in.

I play seriously

How do you feel, Mr. Lipovac?

Fine! I have a lot of work, as the exhibition is being set up. I hope it will be finished to day or tomorrow morning. From what I see now, I believe - and one must believe - that it will be all right. Whether the exhibition and the sculptures are any good, that’s for the visitors to decide. Of course, I’ll be more satisfied if the reactions are positive.

Marko Marulić in Vukovar, Noah’s Ark in Stomorska, statue of the patron saint of Solin in a Boka church, Blue Tree in

Switzerland, the monument to Dražen Petrović in Lausanne…Vasko Lipovac is in Zagreb in these April days of 2005.

Vasko Lipovac interviewed by: Vojo Šiljak

Many sculptors find color irrelevant. But not you. Moreover, you are a sculptor who paints and a painter who sculpts.

I never wanted to separate the two. I was still a freshman when I enrolled in the sculpture class of Radovani. Only in the third semester - when people have al ready chosen their path - I asked, requested to switch to painting. It was strange and un - usual, but they made an exception and let me move from sculpture to painting. Eventually I ended up in the Master Class. But I was always interested in both. I was interested in form; it’s very probable that, at a basic level, form comes first, the sculptural form, and then all this painting. I’d never want to separate the two. I keep on developing; when you work for a long time, you start to repeat yourself, you come to a wall and wonder what to do next. When I feel a lack in my paintings, I look for something attractive to turn it into a form. Whether I succeed - that’s an - other matter. I never like to talk about how good things are. It’s up to the viewers and critics of visual arts who are able to discuss it. I’m supposed to work.

How relaxing is your work?

Very relaxing! I’d want nothing else anyway. I spent most of my life in my study, especially since I obtained a good and pleasant workplace fifteen years ago. Even now when I’m not able to work much, I’m here, among my stuff, in my world. I acted this way already when the working conditions were much, much worse. You simply have wishes, ideas, thou-ghts, which you’re unable to realize when you take a better look. Why? Things lack space, or resources, or a purpose, an application. But if it can’t be five meters tall, it can be five centimeters tall. It’s essential to do something.

I didn’t want to make anybody sad or happy,

I just did what I could at the time. I accept both ways of

looking at it.

How much do you play when you work?

It looks like a nice little game to me. I play seriously. I’m totally serious with everything I do. If it turns into a game, especi-ally for those who see it later, I’m glad. I didn’t want to make anybody sad or happy, I just did what I could at the time. I accept both ways of looking at it.

When I told my colleagues here at the radio that you will be my guest, they said: Wow, Vasko Lipovac! All right! Are you aware that your works make people happy?

I’m not. Of course, I’m glad when people come to my studio and say that they feel good in my space, that they left the everyday world and sailed into another world, something they had never experienced before… Sometimes I think they’re just being polite, but other times I realize they’re speaking their mind, which makes me glad, of course. I don’t strive for that, but if that’s what people see, I must be satisfied. It would be pretentious to say I didn’t care what people think. I do care! In the end, we work for ourselves, first and foremost. We make our own balance of what we did and achieved. When it makes others feel good or happy, as you say, it’s just a bonus to something that fulfills me, to the daily task I set to myself, which I try to achieve alone or with helpers.

I didn’t ask you anything about your famous Cyclists, your Red Flower, sports, theater sets, Little Floramye…

It would be a little to much. I’m interested… or rather, I was interested in many things. Since you mentioned theater sets and other things, I must say: whenever I got an offer, I said I was glad and would give it a try. If it’s fine, you can have it; if not, it means I made a mistake and I get to keep it.

Mr. Lipovac, are you a happy man?

Yes, I am. I may not look like it, but I’m basically happy and content.

Vasko Lipovac was born on June 14th, 1931 in Kotor, Montenegro. Love of all kinds of knowledge and arts was always cherished in his family house, situated at the very end of the Boka Kotorska Bay. Lipovac’s distinctive art developed under a strong influence of a dreamy environment and a high level of cul-ture and pride of his fellow citizens.While studying at the Academy of Applied Arts in Zagreb, Croatia, Lipovac acquired not only a quality education, but made numero-us life-long friends who would continue to support him. After the graduation, from 1955 to 1959, he was attending the master works-hop of Krsto Hegedušić. When he first arrived in Split in 1967, he never expected the Medi-terranean atmosphere to have such a positive effect on his creativity. It is in this Dalmatian city, which remained his home for life, that he created his own figurative world, the world of Vasko Lipovac. He used the most various ma-

Vasko Lipovac (1931 – 2006) Croatian painter, sculptor, printmaker, designer, illustrator and scenographer.

terials, colours, shapes and techniques in the most unusual combinations to model his ima-ginative figures, but it was always the human figure in the centre of his interest. No matter how stylized, that figure is full of life, just like a human being who works, thinks, feels…Vasko Lipovac chose when and where he would exhibit his works. This would happen only after he had finished one part of his work that he con-sidered valuable enough to be presented in the public. It was for this reason that every Vasko’s exhibition, one-man or group, would be a sur-prise for both professional and wide audience.His continuous artistic work earned him nu-merous awards for his sculptures, illustrations and public monuments. In May 2006, “Slo-bodna Dalmacija Daily” awarded him with the lifetime achievement award.Vasko Lipovac died on July 4th, 2006, leaving his opulent work as “legacy for the future”.

— Mirko Gelemanović

Zagreb 1995

Ljubljana 1996

Kaštel Lukšić 1996

Bol 1997

Lausanne 2000

Koeln 2001

London 2014

Pula, Poreč 2004

Split 2006, 2012

From 1995 to 2014The Tour

Publisher: Atelier Vasko Lipovac — Udruga VAL Design: Tomislav Vlainić, Text: Flora Turner-Vučetić, Igor Špoljarić, Zlatko Gall, Mirko Gelemanović, Photo: Robert Matić, Tomislav Bekavac, Mario Lipovac

We would like to thank mr Robert Rickman for his initiative, remarkable contribution and great support in making this exhibition happen.

www.vaskolipovac.com || facebook.com/vaskolipovac

The Artist