Dušan Tršar

Galerija Prešernovih nagrajencev ● Pavšlarjeva hiša Kranj

OB RAZSTAVI
DUŠANA TRŠARJA

Predstavitve Prešernovih nagrajencev in nagrajencev Prešernovega sklada se v
Pavšlarjevi hiši nizajo v kalejdoskop umetniških podob. Tokrat gostimo kiparja, dobit-
nika nagrade Prešernovega sklada za leto 1978 in profesorja na Akademiji za likovno
umetnost, Dušana Tršarja.

Razstavljena dela pomenijo veliko pridobitev za Mestno občino Kranj, kajti s pomočjo
Tršarja, ki oživlja kiparsko površino kot pokrajino, ohranjajočo sledi kiparjeve
človečnosti in topline na umetni površini, ter obenem dopušča materiji, da se njene
lastnosti izrazijo, s svojimi dotiki pa ponujajo pomoč pri oblikovanju snovi do življenja,
spoznamo, da je tudi neživo lahko živo.

Kipar je eno izmed nagrajenih del velikodušno podaril tudi naši stalni zbirki in tako
dodal svoj kamenček v mozaik Galerije Prešernovih nagrajencev.

S to razstavo želimo predstaviti dela umetnikovega ustvarjanja in njegovo doživljanje
sveta ljubiteljem in ljubiteljicam likovne umetnosti ter približati njegova dela širši
javnosti.

Naj se vas umetnikova dela dotaknejo v samem bistvu vašega dojemanja in v vas
pustijo neizbrisane sledove njegove umetniške pokrajine.

Mohor Bogataj, univ. dipl. org.
župan Mestne občine Kranj

ON THE OCCASION
OF THE DUŠAN TRŠAR
EXHIBITION

In the Pavšlar House, the presentations of the Prešeren Award and Prešeren Fund
Award winners form a kaleidoscope of works of art. This time, our guest is the sculp-
tor Dušan Tršar, the 1978 Prešeren Fund Award winner and Professor at the Academy
of Fine Arts.
The exhibited works represent a great acquisition for the Municipality of Kranj. The
works by the sculptor, who resuscitates the statue surface as a landscape which bears
the traces of the artist's humanity and warmth upon artificial surface, while at the
same time allowing the expression of the matter's characteristics, and helping, with his
touch, the material to become alive, help us realize that the inanimate can also be
alive.
The artist generously donated one of his award-winning works to our permanent col-
lection, having thus added a pebble to the mosaic of the Prešeren Award Winners
Gallery.
It is the aim of this exhibition to present the artist's creative work and his experienc-
ing of the world to all art lovers, as well as make them known to the wider public. Let
his works touch you at the deepest point of your perception, leaving inside your minds
eternal traces of his imaginary landscape.

Mohor Bogataj, B.Sc.
Mayor of the Municipality of Kranj

Z a izhodišče tega zapisa se mi zdi zanimivo uporabiti vprašanje, ki ga je Dušanu
Tršarju postavil arhitekt Boris Podrecca: Zakaj so novejši slovenski bronasti kipi
(drugače kot npr. italijanski) skoraj vedno patinirani?

Temeljitega odgovora na tem mestu ni mogoče dati, treba pa je vsaj opozoriti, da gre za
(vsaj relativno) nov pojav: v večjem delu dvajsetega stoletja slovenski kiparji brona pravilo-
ma niso patinirali. Eden od temeljnih razlogov je nedvomno bila - iz raznih virov pode-
dovana in sprejeta - klasicistična tradicija, ki je pri nas prevladovala še dolgo po drugi sve-
tovni vojni, od nje pa se je resnično odvrnila šele generacija, ki se je uveljavila v osemde-
setih letih in pozneje..

Tršar sicer ne spada v to generacijo, je pa ustvarjalec, ki so ga nove težnje v likovni umet-
nosti vedno zanimale in se je zato v svojih delih od začetka rad ukvarjal s sodobnimi likov-
nimi, pa tudi tehničnimi eksperimenti. Vendar pri patiniranju ne gre samo za takšne spod-
bude. Tehnika mu je predvsem omogočila, da je na svojih delih na nov način izrazil tisto
transcendentalnost, ki jo je z drugačnimi sredstvi rad poudarjal tudi na svojih starejših
stvaritvah.

Tu se je treba ustaviti tudi ob značilnem oblikovanju novejših vélikih (v primerjavi z malimi
veljajo drugačne zakonitosti) Tršarjevih skulptur. Sestavljene so iz treh osnovnih elementov.
Prvi je težak, že kar masivni podstavek, prek katerega se kipi ukoreninjajo v tla, še najbolj
idealno v "živo" zemljo. Sledi steblasti osrednji del; tega pisci včasih interpretirajo kot telo,
vendar se mi zdi rastlinska asociacija bolj ustrezna, ne nazadnje, ker véliki kipi jasno pre-
segajo človeško višino in so že zato - čeprav ne samo zato - očitno "nekaj drugega". Zadnji,
zaključni del sicer lahko spominja na glavo, a ne na človeško. Tršar ga oblikuje na razne
načine: včasih nas spomni na glavo docela fantazijskega bitja, drugič na groteskno
skrivenčen relikt krošnje, nemalokrat pa na orožje, npr. na - znova fantazijsko sproščeno
preoblikovano - glavo bojne sekire.

Ta poudarek spreminja kipe v spomenike v (bolj ko običajno) dobesednem smislu, v neme
odmeve in pričevanja v neskončnost oddaljenih, mitskih spopadov. Tudi umetnikovih oseb-
nih: na te kaže s strastnimi potezami preorana površina kipov - ko da bi se avtor, kakor
nešteti pred njim, v neprestanem spopadu z ovojem materije skušal prigrebsti do nikomur
dostopnega živega jedra svojih del. Vendar se na končni stopnji doživljanja njegovih kipov
izgubi tudi ta osebni poudarek, prav pri tem pa ima patina odločilno vlogo: ko jih prekrije,
kipe dokončno prestavi v nedosegljive daljave časa in jih spreminja v skrivnostne čuvarje,
ki bedijo nad zadnjimi odmevi davnih spominov.

Lev Menaše

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T It is my belief that the question, posed to Dušan Tršar by the architect Boris
Podrecca - i.e., why are the recent Slovene bronze statues (unlike e.g. the
Italian ones) almost always patinated? - makes an interesting starting point of
this note on the sculptor's work.

It is not possible to give a detailed answer here, but attention should at least be drawn
to the fact that this is a (relatively) new phenomenon: for the most part of the 20th cen-
tury, Slovene sculptors did not usually patinate the bronze. One of the basic reasons
was undoubtedly the classicist tradition, inherited and adopted from various sources,
which prevailed in our art long after the World War II. It was only the generation which
became important during and after the 1980s that truly broke up with this tradition.
Tršar does not really belong to this generation, but he is nevertheless an artist who
has always been interested in new art trends, and thus from the very beginning liked
to occupy himself with contemporary artistic as well as technical experiments. In the
case of patination, however, these were not the only stimulations. Above all, the tech-
nique made it possible for him to express, in his works and in a new way, the tran-
scendence which he had also liked to emphasize in his earlier creations, albeit using
other means.

At this point, the characteristic shaping of the more recent large Tršar's sculptures
(while with the small ones, different rules apply) should be mentioned. They consist of
three basic elements. The first one is the heavy, almost massive base, through which
the statues are rooted into the ground, preferably the "live" earth. This is followed by
a stem-like central part; it is interpreted as the body by some writers, but I find the
association with plants to be more appropriate, last but not least due to the fact that
these large statues clearly surpass human height, and are therefore - although not
merely because of that - obviously "something else". The last, concluding part may
remind us of a head, but not a human one. Tršar shapes it in various manners: at
times, it is reminiscent of a head of an entirely imaginary being, at others of a
grotesquely distorted relic of a treetop, but often of some kind of arms, as e.g. (again
fantastically reshaped in a relaxed way) head of a battle-axe.

This emphasis turns sculptures into monuments in the (more than usual) litteral sense
of the word; it turns them into silent echoes and testimonies of infinitely distant, myth-
ic combats. Also those personal of the artist: the statue surface, "ploughed-up" by pas-
sionate strokes, bears witness of these. As if the author, just as countless others
before him, had constantly been trying to reach, in an endless battle against the "wrap-
ping" of the material, through to the inacessible live core of his works. At the final
stage of experiencing his statues, however, this personal accent withers away, and this
is when the patina plays a decisive role: by covering the statues, it ultimately moves
them into inaccessible distances of time, turning them into mysterious guards, keep-
ing watch over the last echoes of ancient memories.

Translated by Jana Kranjec-Menaše

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BIOGRAFIJA

Dušan Tršar je bil rojen leta 1937 na Planini pri Rakeku. V letu 1958 se je vpisal na kiparski odd-
elek na Akademiji za likovno umetnost v Ljubljani. Študiral je pri profesorjih Zdenku Kalinu in
Frančišku Smerduju ter leta 1963 diplomiral. Leta 1966 je končal kiparsko specialko pri prof.
Borisu Kalinu. Poleg svobodnega umetniškega delovanja je deset let poučeval likovno vzgojo v
Pionirskem domu v Ljubljani. Leta 1979 je kot docent začel predavati kiparstvo na Akademiji za
likovno umetnost v Ljubljani, leta 1991 pa je postal redni profesor na ALU.
Nagrado Prešernovega sklada je prejel leta 1978 za razstave v zadnjih letih.

BIOGRAPHY

Dušan Tršar was born in 1937 at Planina. In 1958 he began his studies at the Department of
Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, with Professors Zdenko Kalin and Frančišek
Smerdu, and graduated in 1963. In 1966 he concluded his specializing with Professor Boris Kalin.
Apart from working as a freelance artist, he has also been teaching drawing and painting to chil-
dren at the Pionirski dom (House of Pioneers) in Ljubljana for 10 years. In 1979 he began teach-
ing sculpture as Senior Lecturer at the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1991, he became
Professor at the same academy. In 1978, he was awarded the Prešeren Fund Award for his exhibi-

tions throughout the recent years.

PRILOŽENE GRAFIKE

Spomin na kip 1, sitotisk, 2003
Spomin na kip 2, sitotisk, 2003
Igra s prostorom5, sitotisk, 2003
Igra s prostorom 6, sitotisk, 2003

Siva nedelja, sitotisk, 2003

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Zloženko izdala: Mestna občina Kranj, Slovenski trg 1, 4000 Kranj
Zanjo: Mohor Bogataj

Organizacija: Nada Bogataj, Marko Arnež
Besedilo: dr. Lev Menaše

Lektura: mag. Stanko Šimenc
Prevod: Jana Kranjec - Menaše

Oblikovanje: Marko Tušek
Fotografiji kipov: Marko Tušek

Tisk: Tiskarna GTO Košir
Naklada: 300

Kranj, oktober 2003

Mestna občina Kranj ● Slovenski trg1 ● 4000 Kranj
t 04/ 23 73 160 ● f 04/ 23 73 167
www.kranj.si



Ta publikacija
je v tiskani različici izšla
v obliki mape

(na fotografijah)