Dušan Otašević ( sr-Cyrl, Душан Оташевић, born 1940) is a

Serbian Serbian may refer to: * Pertaining to Serbia in Southeast Europe; in particular **Serbs, a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans ** Serbian language ** Serbian culture **Demographics of Serbia, includes other ethnic groups within the co ...

artist.

Biography

Otašević was born in

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

in what was then the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...

. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Belgrade in 1966. At first he was associated with "New Figuration" in Belgrade, turned to Pop-Art and produced sculptural objects. He currently lives in Belgrade. Solo exhibitions and participations (selection): *1966 "New Figuration of Belgrade Circle", Gallery of the Cultural Centre, Belgrade. *1967 Gallery in the House of the Rising Generation, Belgrade. *1984 "Line", Gallery Sebastian, Belgrade. *1990 "Ilija Dimić", Gallery Sebastian, Belgrade. *1995 "Portrait", Gallery SANU, Belgrade.

Works

Sangstrel - the portrait of the author (1975)

In this work, author Dušan Otašević using humorous and ironic contents and the authentic structure, demystifies the presentation of a painter-genius. The “Sangstel — Portrait of the Painter”, was created for his solo show in Dubrovnik Gallery. Because of that, the artist chose as the motif for his artwork the figure that gave the Gallery its name, iconographically directly taken over from Mantegna's painting (from the Louvre) showing St. Sebastian tied to a pole and dying from fatal stabs by numerous arrows. Still, the artist transformed the appropriated quotation into the portrait of the artist more closely defined with the unusual neologism – Sangstrel. Composed from three words: sang (blood in French), angstrom (or angstrom unit, after the Swedish physicist, measuring unit for light and other waves) and strel (or strela, an arow in Serbian; n.b. in Old English strael, now arrow) – this fictional, quasi technical term that reminds one of a kind of a semi cold weapon, is the signpost to Otašević's relationship towards the fixed phantasms about the character of a painter and his work.SANGSTREL – PORTRET SLIKARA (1975) Legend: Dušan Otašević, Sangstrel – portret slikara, 1975, wood and canvas (painted), rope, 190 x 185 x 3 cm Source: N. Martinović, „Duša Otašević u TC Istorija umetnosti“, predgovor u katalogu, Galerija RIMA, Beograd 2021. https://galerijarima.com/clanci/izlobe/arhiva-beograd/dusan-otasevic.html

The figure of St. Sebastian is not stabbed with arrows, but with thin rods representing the handles of painterly.

Brushes or pencils, and each of them is painted in one of the seven colors of the natural spectrum, placed in seven pattern squares lined along the inside of the frame. The length of each “arrow”, although arbitrarily defined, is set in such a way to conjure the wavelength of its colour. The shortest is the violet one as the col- our with the least number of angstroms and the longest is the red, with the most of angstroms. Sangstrel is a hyperbolised myth about the internal traumas of a painterly genius, an individual chosen by mystical powers who is bleeding his creation. Standing on the borderline from where the belief in the “romantic stereotype of the artistic sublime being is dissolved, Otašević does not enter the field of sarcasm, nor does he push his work into a grotesque.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Otasevic, Dusan Serbian painters Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Artists from Belgrade 1940 births Living people