Vladimir Makuc

P
red nekaj več ko šestdesetimi leti nas je Pablo Picasso naučil, kako se da
najbolj preprosto narediti skulpturo bikove glave: skombinirajte sedež in balanco
starega kolesa.

Zdaj nas Vladimir Makuc uci, kako se da najbolj preprosto narediti skulpturo
režeče bikove glave: skombinirajte sedež in balanco starega kolesa ter na sedež
naslikajte oči in usta.

Picassova skulptura je že dolgo ikona moderne umetnosti, še več, postala je summa
Umetnosti. Doma imam staro Jansonovo Istorijo umetnosti, ki je na njenih platnicah
odtisnjen obris Picassove skulpture: še preden se je lotil teksta, je bralec že poznal
njegov povzetek - odtisnjen v zlatu, tako, kakor se za ikono tudi spodobi.

Ikone so nespremenljive. Dovoljeno jih je kopirati, vendar kopist ne sme spremeniti
niti najmanjšega detajla; če to stori, je zagrešil svetoskrunstvo. To velja za stare
ikone in še toliko bolj za Picassovo, ki se je, kolikor vem, še nihče ni upal spremin-
jati - do Makuca.

Kako je Makuc do te stopnje prišel, nam razstava v Pavšlarjevi hiši kaže predvsem s
pomočjo njegovih risb. Njihovo zaporedje - od petdesetih let prejšnjega stoletja pa
do danes - vsaj na prvi pogled sledi klasični razvojni poti umetnika njegove ge-
neracije. Prvim, ki jih je zaradi čiste linije in vsakdanje tematike mogoče povezati z
značilnim slovenskim intimizmom petdesetih let, v zgodnjih šestdesetih letih sledi
odkritje bogastva tekstur in "akcijsko" potegnjene poteze; in pozneje v istem
desetletju ter še vedno v sedemdesetih letih neprestano izpopolnjevanje teh in
drugih izraznih sredstev, ki jih je v slovensko umetnost prinesel predvsem informel
in ki jih je ljubljanska grafična šola (Makuc je seveda eden njenih ključnih pred-
stavnikov) prignala do vrhunske pretanjenosti. - Poznejši tokovi, pop- in op-art, mini-
malizem in superrealizem, se umetnika, značilno, niso zares dotaknili; tako kakor
likovni svet drugih vodilnih predstavnikov njegove generacije je bil tudi njegov že
tako dodelan, da ga ni bilo več smiselno prilagajati novim smerem.

O vrhunski pretanjenosti je mogoče govoriti tudi ob najnovejših Makučevih delih,
a le redko samo o njej; dejansko je v njegovi umetnosti že od začetka mogoče sledi-
ti dvema pogosto prepletajočima se tokovoma, svetlemu in temnemu, in temni je tisti,
po katerem se bistveno razlikuje od večine svojih sodobnikov. Oba izvirata iz
mediteranske tradicije, s katero je Makučevo ustvarjanje neločljivo povezano že
od začetka, drugače ko pri Makucu pa v antiki nista imela enakopravne vloge:
najprej je prevladoval temni in potem svetli. Preden jo je prekrila koprena klasične-
ga obdobja Fidije ter njegovih sodobnikov in naslednikov, je bila mediteranska umet-
nost divja ter grozeča in čeprav so poznejša obdobja, zlasti tista od renesanse do
devetnajstega stoletja, spoštovala in posnemala samo vzvišeno veličastnost klasike,
so pod njo preživeli tudi starodavni demoni. Ti so v obdobju moderne znova stopili
v ospredje, tako vidni kakor nevidni, tisti v človeški in oni v živalski obliki.

V Makučevem opusu že od nekdaj srečujemo oboje, a živalski so bili vedno pomemb-
nejši: iz črnine prepletenih potez zgnetena bitja, ki reže pogledujejo proti nam. V
zgodnjih delih gre včasih celo za osla, tradicionalno najponižnejšo med živalmi, ki
pa v umetnikovi interpretaciji dobi običajno docela nasprotno vlogo; včasih za
istrskega vola in včasih za ovna; največkrat pa za bika, simbol divje in nepremagljive
moči, ki so jo vsak po svoje - a vsi v istem pomenu - upodabljali tako egipčanski ter
minojski umetniki kakor Picasso. Makučeva Bikova glava torej ni samo hommage
najslavnejšemu mojstru dvajsetega stoletja, ampak predvsem del tistega toka, ki se
iz davnine umetnosti neustavljivo vali v njeno prihodnost.

Lev Menaše

A
little over sixty years ago Pablo Picasso showed us the simplest way to cre-
ate a sculpture of a bull's head: by combining a seat and a handlebar of an old bike.

Nowadays, Vladimir Makuc shows us the simplest way to create a sculpture of a
snaring bull's head: by combining a seat and a handlebar of an old bike, and paint-
ing eyes and mouth on the seat.

Picasso's sculpture has long been an icon of modern art, it has, moreover, become
the summa of Art. On the cover of my old History of Art by Janson, there is an
imprint of the outline of Picasso's sculpture: before even tackling the text, the
reader already knew its summary - imprinted in gold, just the way it becomes an icon.

Icons are unalterable. They may be copied, but not the tiniest detail may be
changed; it is sheer sacrilege to do that. This holds true for old icons, and even
more so for Picasso's, which, at least to my knowledge, no one has dared to change
- until Makuc.

The drawings from the exhibition in the Pavšlar House indicate the way which has
led Makuc to this stage. Their sequence - from the 1950s up to today - follows, at
least on the first sight, the classical development course of an artist of his gen-
eration. The first ones, which due to their clear line and everyday topics may be
linked to the characteristic Slovene intimism of the 1950s, are in the early 1960s
followed by the discovery of texture wealth and "action painting" strokes; later
on in the same decade, and still in the 1970s, by constant perfecting of these and
other means of expression, introduced into Slovene art mainly by the informel and
driven to utmost refinement by the Ljubljana Graphic School (Makuc of course
having been one of its key representatives). - Later trends, e.g. pop- and op-art, min-
imalism, superrealism have - characteristically - not really touched the artist; as
was the case with art worlds of other leading artists of his generation, his own was
already perfected to such a degree that it made no sense to adapt it to new trends.

Utmost refinement is also the characteristic of Makuc's most recent works, but
rarely the only one. In fact, two often intertwining currents may be traced in his
art from its very beginnings, the light one and the dark one; the latter being the
one that makes Makuc essentially different from the majority of his contempo-
raries. Both these currents have their source in the Mediterranean tradition, to
which Makuc's creative work has been inseparably linked from the start, but unlike
Makuc's work, their roles in ancient art were not equal: first the dark one pre-
vailed, then the light one. Before having been covered by the veil of the classical
period of Phidias with his contemporaries and successors, Mediterranean art was
wild and threatening, and although later periods, especially those from the
Renaissance to the 19th century, respected and immitated only the sublime
grandeur of the classics, beneath it the ancient demons also survived. In the peri-
od of modern art, they once again moved to the front, so the visible as the invisi-
ble ones, those in human as well as those in animal form.

In the opus of Makuc, both have ever been present, but the animal ones have always
been more important: creatures, moulded from the darkness of interweaved
strokes, snaring at us. In his early works, it is sometimes a donkey, traditionally
the meekest of animals which in the artist's interpretation gains an entirely con-
trary role to the usual one; at times, it is an Istrian ox or a ram; the most often,
though, it is a bull, a symbol of wild and invincible strength that has been pictured
in different ways - but with the same meaning - by Egyptian and Minoan artists, as
well as by Picasso. Makuc's Bull's Head is therefore not only a hommage to the
most famous master of the 20th century, but above all a part of that current which
from the antiquity of art unstoppably rolls towards its future.

Lev Menaše



Galerija Prešernovih nagrajencev
za likovno umetnost
Kranj

Glavni trg 18
4000 Kranj
04/202 57 16
www.gpn-kranj.si
[email protected]

Organizacija: Nada Bogataj, Marko Arnež
Besedilo: dr. Lev Menaše ● Prevod: Jana Kranjec Menaše ● Korekture: Marija Šubic
Foto: Aleksandra Saksida, Tihomir Pinter, Marko Tušek ● Oblikovanje: Marko Tušek

● Tisk: Tiskarna GTO Košir

Kranj, februar 2007

Mestna občina Kranj
Slovenski trg 1, 4000 Kranj

www.kranj.si



















Galerija Prešernovih nagrajencev
za likovno umetnost
Kranj
Glavni trg 18
4000 Kranj
04/202 57 16
www.gpn-kranj.si
[email protected]

Mestna občina Kranj
Slovenski trg 1, 4000 Kranj

www.kranj.si

Ta publikacija
je v tiskani različici izšla
v obliki mape

(na fotografijah)