(Antoni Maznevski’s exhibition at Mala Galerija, 2007)
#1 The recent works of the painter Antoni Maznevski (1963, Skopje), derive from his renewed interest in the expressive potentials of drawing and planar sculpture. In this instance, the exhibition space of Mala Galerija is hosting twenty seven pastels of the artist that were made during the year of 2006.
#2 As regards the motive and the procedure, Maznevski’s solution is rather simple: he is using the set of curves from the technical drawing kit as a template for human-like formations, for symbolic images and for intimations about what is represented.
#3 The first impression, though, is unimpressive – to the same extent as are the pictures found the psychological personality tests. Nevertheless, beneath the stern arrangements (within) inside the format and the disciplined manipulation of the few elements, there is an abundance of formal solutions. The theme of Maznevski concerns the investigation of the remote origins of that, virtually unlimited, formal wealth. To his proper inklings of the sense and meaning in those diagrams of the consciousness, the artist had given the name of „Synthetic biogenes” – the elementary particles of the life-giving principle.
#4 There is no doubt that in the realm of the curved lines an order of reality is reining – exponential functions, differential equations, geometrically conceived tractrices and unusual fractions along the numeral axis. The narrative of Maznevski unfolds upon the vague feeling that the knowledge about this order is a foundation of the mystery of existence.
#5 It goes without saying that every initiation in the mysteries requires a sacrifice: the line drawn with the pastel crayon is generic, the composition is stiff and hieratic, while the overall repetitiveness is dulling the senses. For Maznevski, the only remaining space of freedom is the game between the expectations and the uncertainty, and that is a game that can be neither won, nor lost.
#6 The pastels on display are but a part of artist’s inquiry into the visual discourse which is based on the vocabulary of the technical utensils. In other words, this artistic concept is yet to be assessed in its entirety. Henceforth, the exhibition of Maznevski – when considered in working terms – assumes a double role: on one hand, it is due to announce the existence of some wider context of research while, on the other hand, it is documenting the scope and the seriousness of developmental stages in the artist’s project.