Recent Reviews
All the paintings selected for this show witness the creative path that was passed as well as the noticeable morphological changes based on systematic studio experiments. Tonko Maroević recognized Vuković's «liberation of individual gesture and fuller autonomy of signs» in one of the earliest painter's exhibition, the 1989 Miroslav Kraljević Galley show. He explained this as «a need to breathe and write simultaneously». On that occasion Maroević wrote the often-quoted line about Vuković's instinctive finding of expressionist stylization close to Milan Konjović's work. This line would soon become a leit motif of later interpretations of Vuković's work.
I tend to think that this exhibition could be the «turning point» (another term from Maroević's foreword) after which the previously mentioned stylistic features would definitely be classified as traits of Vuković's painterly past, but not the present. I would like to stress that the composition and the structure of the selected paintings spring mainly from Vuković's individual procedure, with only a few reminiscences of his role models' creative characteristics. While composing a picture Vuković shares more similarity with Dulčić and Dogan than with Konjović, although he reached similar solutions in a completely different artistic development. Instead of the «need to breathe and write simultaneously» we are now facing the need, again induced from the author's subconsciousness, of gradual picture building with no causal reference to the reality itself. Intuitive expressiveness was replaced by equally original method of balancing inner instincts and modest expression of masterly craft.
Darko Glavan (from the foreword to the exhibition catalogue, Matica hrvatska Gallery, 2008)
In a global defeat of art, universally deduced to cheap puns, like British art commandos who exhibit nylon stockings and dirty laundry earning millions thanks to unscrupulous curators, it is a miracle to experience powerful new painting which celebrates life. This is the case with the most paintings by Davor Vuković exhibited at Matica hrvatska Gallery. The show appeared as a thunder on a weak Croatian art scene which is crowded with lame imitators who, as their international peers also do, only recycle and copy past as well as (post) conceptual puns, using favorite postmodern invention: the quote. We can cynically comment that after the notorious formula equating art with life, everyone is allowed to call himself or herself an artist.
Vuković's cycle flashed with amazing power and breathtaking paintings. Although created by using the well-known Action Painting technique of dripping, the paintings called Transformations are fascinating studies of the unknown phenomena can be traced by microscope or by watching fantastic changes of night sky through the telescope. The Universe is for Vuković the pure joy and light of almost Biblical connotations. Each painting is a poetic explosion where particles spread radially as cosmos. With the strength of an athlete and a heart of poet Vuković created his impressions without referring to others.
And why should he refer to anybody else? There is enough poor art and especially too many second-rate followers of Murtić convinced of their genius. Therefore, this exhibition is a pure miracle performed by this self-effacing poet and artist who suddenly emerged as the epicenter of top Croatian painting. And this is something very special!
Marina Tenžera (art critic, Vjesnik daily paper, May 5th 2008)
After Pollock there was nothing left to be said, I thought. But, I was wrong. Congratulations to the artist.
Davor Velnić (author, guestbook at Matica hrvatska Gallery, 2008)
Davor Vuković’s painting, exhibited at Matica hrvatska Gallery is a really refreshing discovery in recent Croatian art. Not conforming to current artistic trends, Vuković promotes the joy of painting and presents his inner dramatic world in paintings full of specific color whirls and carefully designed compositions. He reasserts the classical essence of painting as an aesthetic phenomenon and as an art as opposed to witty painterly puns that are flooding Croatian and international art scene of today.
Ernest Fišer, MA (author, literary and art critic, guestbook at Matica hrvatska Gallery, 2008)
Vuković’s most recent work represents a step forward from his paintings exhibited at Matica hrvatska Gallery in 2008, a step forward towards pure abstraction and composition simplification. A kind of form denial present in most of his paintings between 2004 and 2007 can be noticed in shrouding landscapes in a thick web of white threads and deconstructing the matter from the first layer to the surface. This is now being replaced clearly structured imaginary landscapes and unusual linear forms rise from the bottom of horizontally set paintings. The leit motif is still spattered paint pushed towards the edges of the canvas. In some paintings it is completely non-descriptive and it dominates the white ground with no perspective or plans. These compositions of threads are set apart from Vuković’s contemporaneous dynamic landscapes made by light and quick brushstrokes on pure white canvas.
With his recent works Vuković reached a point when no comparison with any authority is necessary. He reached the point when his merit can no more be evaluated by citing quotes. Self-assured and dynamic, recognizable but not monotonously same, playful in color and freed from entropy, he expresses a more casual and open gesture and once again reassures his position among the established Croatian painters.
Mirjana Repanić Braun, PhD (from the foreword to the exhibition cataloge at Vladimir Filakovac Gallery, Zagreb, 2008.)
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Davor Vuovic
