Fragment 6.
#1 The works of Vladimir Lukaš exhibit a spontaneous and nominally natural combination of the two so-called grammars. What is seen here is the interdependence of the verbal and the visual, the two dominant modes of presentation and communication (the composition). Like everything else in Lukaš’s works, multilingualism is conveyed in fragments (Macedonian, English, German, Latin, Greek, etc.) that do not strive to form a fully coherent statement. This is not just a result of fragmentation, but also of the rotation of fragments in space, which in turn serve to stimulate an open dialogue between the two hemispheres of the brain, the two centers that are partly physiologically defined, and cannot function one without the other.
#2 This raises another important question regarding the hybridity and purity of the artistic expression, as well as their mutual distinction and contrast to one another. This exceptional collection problematizes these issues in an interesting and spontaneous (perhaps even subconscious) way, as a worthy successor of an anti-modern tradition inspired by surrealism and the Dada movement, as well as other precursors in the past that deal with the irrational, such as the Symbolists.
#4 Perhaps under the strong impression of a strange form of l’art pour l’art (which is present in the local scene that refuses to face the theory), and especially Greenberg’s modernism (when an entire theory becomes a crutch), what remains overlooked is the fact that regardless of artists such as Duchamp, the most influential were the witty and fascinating writers such as Roussel, Allais, Jarry and Mallarmé, rather than any other visual artist.
#3 However, Lukaš does not exclude rationality from his creative strategy, and chance is often (if not always) defined by specific relations within the work as well as with control that, although minimal, provides the basic structure of the whole (not just the painting, but the images and words). Mostly due to the visual impossibility of representation and reference, it is language that holds the potential to provide multiple directions, although at first glance it may seem chaotic and hermetic. It is precisely jokes and wit, usually considered as middle to low (but never high) art, that in fact bring about the vitality of specific elements (characters, text fragments in different languages, rotated, stray, erased, covered letters), allowing the game to continue flowing undyingly. Without this, I may freely say, the game will stop. And that would be very sad.
Skopje, 4-6 November, 2012
(unfinished fragment of the text dedicated to Vladimir Lukaš)