Marko Stamenković

RELAX WITH KAROLINA

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This series of paintings and sculptures is a continuation of Janičić’s long lasting demonstration of personal, individual rebellion where Karolina has the leading role. His instrumentation of ‘public indecency’, in picture and through the picture, once again confirms the central principle of his satirical activeness within the space he belongs to and by means of which he protects the recognisable features of his practice in contemporary painting in the Mediterranean and continental South-European space: it is the visualisation of the signals of (the necessary) civic disobedience in the cultural-political conditions founded on the cult of perfumed excretion. Karolina is not just an anthroponym by which the personal name or nickname of an unknown female person implies a real, concrete female person, nor is the truth about her mysterious identity an exclusive privilege of the author of the series of pictures whose titles and ‘dramatic plots’ refer to her. Karolina is not a woman – and her attributes ‘only’ feminine. KAROLINA is a sign with which Janičić inscribes his name into the recent history of painting and continues with opening new horizons of socio-political awareness in his specific way: with his paintings on canvas, drawings or sculptures, despite the dominant digital technologies and media. In the times and spaces that, unfortunately, still bear the burden of the raging libido-patriotic instincts and unsober territorial pretensions and delusions, new Janičić’s paintings are ‘enveloped’ in perfectly cut costumes for the gentlemen with the rolling-pin in their brain and their ‘bosomy ladies’ (as he would subtly describe it). Therefore, relax with Karolina and don’t worry: everything is under perfect control – in the next years everything will be the same, perhaps even much better, warmer, more exciting and successful! Be sure of that – or let others continue convincing you...

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