foreword

3331, PICTURES FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY

When I wrote, a few years ago, about the works of Izabela Šimunović, I discussed her primarily as a printmaker, whose visual language, within the graphic form of expression, was based on a morphology of archetypes, of forms pared down to exclude everything that was not essential, and an abstracted space, matrices that were repeated in various combinations, thus creating the composition of the print. The exhibition of paintings with which Izabela Šimunovic is today appearing before the Zagreb public is a new and different direction in her artistic development.
As against the previously mentioned element of the primordial in her work, the archetypes that – in spite of their being, or precisely because they are, prehistoric – are actual common and universal signs or symbols, in the recent works, the paintings, an important about-turn can be seen. Instead of carrying on a dialogue with universal and hence necessarily external topics, Izabela has started to be more intimately concerned with herself; in short, in this work from the dialogic form she has moved into the monologue.
In the medium of painting too, which the artist has clearly deliberately chosen as an act of distancing from her previous manner of work, because of the much greater expressive opportunities that it affords, she makes use of some procedures borrowed from printmaking. To put this more precisely, in the new paintings there are certain matrices that are also links with her earlier works and a joining element within the new cycle as well. Right from the Self-Portrait with Mother, which can be considered a key work in the whole of the cycle, she juxtaposes to the practically realistic procedure of painting from a photograph of her earliest childhood an abstract, torn space of the painting and forms applied by way of matrix, repeated in variations. Other paintings might be provisionally grouped into two thematic lines: interiors and exteriors, although – as we have said earlier – this is a matter of a painterly articulation of the internal life of the artist and her personal experiences. In both cases, really at issue are spaces of emptiness. Even when the artist, as in a number of “landscapes” attempts to fill them in, drawing out the “concrete” scene, instead of an impression of reality, much more in evidence is a feeling of abandonment and emptiness.
The earlier works of Izabela Šimunovic were often perceived as cheerful, playful and breezy, and hence sometimes considered superficial as well. By contrast, the new cycle, Pictures from the Beginning of the Century, is her own introspective painterly analysis, a moment of personal confrontation with the dark side of artistic creation. Although she very often uses signs that in their symbolism primarily awaken a buoyant mood, such as little angels and bees, in her interpretation here they have very different connotations, become symbols of a darker and much more nightmarish world.

Miroslav Gašparović

predgovor za katalog

3331, SLIKE S POČETKA STOLJEĆA

Kada sam prije nekoliko godina pisao o radovima Izabele Šimunović, pisao sam o njoj prvenstveno kao o grafičarki čiji se likovni jezik, unutar grafičkog izraza, zasnivao na morfologiji arhetipova, formi ogoljelih od svega suvišnog, te apstrahiranom prostoru, matricama koje se ponavljaju u različitim kombinacijama, stvarajući tako kompoziciju slike-grafike. Izložba slika kojom se Izabela Šimunović danas predstavlja zagrebačkoj javnosti, predstavlja novi i drugačiji pravac njezina umjetničkog kretanja.
U odnosu na spomenuti element primordijalnog u njezinu radu, na arhetipove koji su – mada, ili upravo zato što su pretpovijesni – zapravo zajednički, opći znakovi ili simboli, u recentnim radovima – slikama, uočljiv je već značajan preokret. Izabela se umjesto dijaloga s općim, a time i izvanjskim temama, počela baviti sobom samom; ukratko, ovim radovima Izabela je iz dijaloške forme prešla u monološku.
I u slikarskom mediju, koji je autorica očigledno svjesno odabrala kao odmak od dosadašnjeg načina rada zbog mnogo većih izražajnih mogućnosti koje pruža, služi se određenim grafičkim metodama. Preciznije rečeno, i na novim slikama pojavljuju se određene matrice koje su ujedno i spona s njezinim ranijim radovima i poveznica unutar ovog novog ciklusa.
Već na slici Autoportret s majkom, koja se može smatrati ključnom za cijeli ciklus, ona gotovo realističan prosede slikanja po fotografiji iz najranijeg djetinjstva suprotstavlja apstraktnom, rastrzanom prostoru slike i matrično nanesenim formama koje se ponavljaju u različitim varijacijama. Ostale slike uvjetno bismo mogli grupirati u dvije tematske linije: interijere i eksterijere, iako se – kako smo to već ranije rekli – ovdje radi o slikarskoj artikulaciji unutarnjeg života umjetnice i njezinih osobnih iskustava. U oba slučaja radi se zapravo o prostorima praznine. Čak i kad ih umjetnica kao u nekoliko Ťpejzažať pokušava ispuniti iscrtavajući Ťkonkretanť pejzaž, umjesto dojma realiteta, naglašeniji je dojam ostavljenosti i praznine.
Raniji radovi Izabele Šimunović često su prepoznavani kao vedri, razigrani i lepršavi, te stoga ponekad smatrani i površnim. Nasuprot tomu, novi ciklus Slika s početka stoljeća njena je introspektivna slikarska analiza i moment osobnog sučeljavanja s mračnom stranom umjetničkog stvaranja. Iako vrlo često koristi znakove koji svojom simbolikom primarno pobuđuju lepršavo raspoloženje, poput anđelčića ili pčelica, u ovoj njezinoj interpretaciji oni imaju posve drugačije konotacije, postajući simbolima jednog tamnijeg košmarnog svijeta.

Miroslav Gašparović, 2006

priča

The day Miyamoto Musashi met Timothy Leary

It all began with the keeper of the threshold.
The pleasant but somewhat starchy Mr Samsa met him in the city of alchemy.
The keeper of the threshold in a poignant vision is embodied in Prague.
Don Juan speaks of him as a vast bug, perhaps a fly, but anyway an insect.
Dali and Bunuel found him coming through the palm of the hand into an Andalusian dog, and this, they say, is an old cabbalistic place for reading the names of gods and of men.

All this passed through the head of Miyamoto Musashi as his glance took in the humble interior of his heremetical cave.
“Let it all go to blue blazes, I haven’t yet reached enlightenment, and I have been drawing these repulsive landscapes with a bamboo pen for years,” thought Miyamoto.
He had long since left the career of samurai, happily reminiscing about the severed heads that had looked pleadingly at him below their legs in the last instants of consciousness.
When he was little, his mummy had told him the story of Bas-celik.
He recalled the chap who yelled “Baba, give head”.
A hell of a time had passed before he had known that Baba is what they call some chap that has a fuzzy hair-do like James Brown and lives in some tip in India materialising dust the livelong day.
“Well, I’m a dust expert too,” thought Miyamoto to himself, “whoever my sword laid into turned into ash good and proper, for ever and ever”.

He returned to the lotus position.
They call it all sorts of stuff, some say its asana, some say it’s the embodiment of divine love.
He thought to himself. “What if I have already been enlightened for ages and what if I made that dull decision to stay on earth, helping other souls in their evolution, and now it seems to me that I am still in the cave, and that not so many years have passed, but very, very few.”
His consciousness dulled, he saw a golden passage and transferred to the astral plane.
“Look, Leary,” said Musashi, and saw him really walking along some Dune the Desert Planet landscape. He hated it when SF aesthetics made it into the astral plane.
He levitated over to him, and they decided to travel together.
Timothy teleported the thought that this time he was leading and that he had to show him an interesting level.

Again they came to Samsa.
Miyamoto wanted to tell Leary to fuck off; he didn’t feel like standing on the edge of worlds like a voyeur any longer, watching poor sods on a trip repeating always the same action, and then setting them tricks at these levels, palming off on them some film for the flashbacks to hassle them for years.
He realised that he hated this language, when on the astral plane with Leary he was using North Dalmatian slang.
You can choose your language when you get into a certain level, and this seemed the best for the definition of a given state.
He had been offered languages of a million different tribes info about which you can find only in The Golden Bough, but no way in life.
They looked at the double of a girl painting.
“I paint too in that sodding cave,” said Miyamoto, “and I didn’t have to get to the threshold and watch a blasted mutant of Hieronymus Bosch personally meditatively staring at me and wanting to tell me something; he looks so sweet, but nothing comes out of his mouth but bzzzz.”
Leary conspiratorially laid his finger over his mouth, wanting to say “do stop thinking” – they couldn’t anyway speak as long as they were out of their bodies.
Series of pictures surrounded the double of the girl, making the familiar astral push-up (type of astral transformation governed by the formula antimatter=antienergy), and the paintings turned into a level,
“Let’s set sail into her worlds, it’s a free charter,” thought Miyamoto, “there’s no blasted skipper, no gales, and we don’t have to lean over.”

Hill.
A blasted aborigine hill and a pack of Australian animals, and he had it up to here already with the Japanese.
Some looked as if you had mixed South American species with Australian.
“No wonder,” thought Miyamoto. “Yeah, if me and Leary have come into her worlds, then these kinds of crosses are completely standard stuff.”
Bugs Bunny ran up, telling the text of “zajec nu pagadi” (i.e., in Russian)m and then a pack of insects, angels, llamas, horses, buffaloes, mammoths, elks, seals, butterflies, bees with Maya the Bee at their head and a lovelorn Pavao, sheep, poultry, friends of animals in the five thousandth protest against eating them, cyclists, cycle friends associated in an NGO, the civil servant for registering NGOs, two Chapman brothers boys with dicks on their noses, Natasha from the city of Vienna, together with a boyish friend, two Egyptian embalmed cats, Borghes with one of the translations of A thousand and one nights under his arm, Stakhanov with a miner’s shovel full of coal…
And then that fucking Emile Zola and the miners that Van Gogh drew with the potatoes and the potatoes of the Holland brand, the mysterious men in black, Tupac, of course, and hordes of street gangs “from L.A.”, white trash together with their trailers, incarnations of 50 yoga gurus accompanied with their frenzied followers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Ron and the Scientologists writing out bank transfers for church membership, Cathars, Patarenes, Rosicrucians with seven initiations, Jesuits from the Paraguayan reductions…
And at the end, Osho, who was walking with all of them, and knitting his cap.
Oh well, at this scene, Leary and Miyamoto burst out laughing.

Mother with child.
The Sacra familia (so it seemed to him that the Wops called it); he was, after all, a semi-enlightened former samurai from a cave in Japan.
The hairstyles were from the seventies.
But that was a principle in western art, wasn’t it?
Deities and their parents were always the same, but they gave them contemporary bodies, hairdos, clothing and landscapes.
Miyamoto thought it hilarious that in some theological college there must be stylistic subjects with the title How to Dress God.
Surely in Zen everything was simpler.
Starting from nothing was a lot easier than starting from God.
Then you have trouble with forms, you have to transcend it through various figures and inspire him with a spirit. “We do it with landscapes,” thought Miyamoto.
A silhouette of a seated man.
“Thinking, thinking, this is some meditator like me” thought Miyamoto, when he wasn’t able to say it out loud.
And in this fellow the same animals again, thousands of them.
He turns round to Leary. Perhaps this is all some game of his, perhaps the girl with the easel is one of his groupies.
And now B. should come and say “pleased to meet you, I hope you can guess my name” as the crappy Jagger who played the mad Aleister Crowley in that short film.
And he couldn’t put on his head that ridiculous cap that had not connection with Osho’s fez.
If he could at least tonsil toss with that lovely, like the sculpture he had seen in the Rodin museum, two fine bodies, coming out of the stone.
Fizzle, fizzle, went the stone, like an eggshell, and the two of them were all but alive.
And then they were having it off in front of you.

Mountain landscape.
These hills were more familiar to him; very steep round peaks with the odd stunted pine on the slopes.
Merge. Leary used one of her paintings to go back to a level closer to the real world.
Spiral whirling, like when they put a scoop of ice cream into a cone for you.
“Perhaps the lord of incarnation is from Tetovo where all the good ice-cream men come from” thought Miyamoto, “and so he’s created everything spirally, the passage through the worlds, DNA, the womb, the labyrinth, a pig’s dick…”
Off went his chum.
He didn’t sing to him, because they were bound to meet again, sure as eggs.
“That’s written in my stars,” Miyamoto muttered cynically.
Mountains, sky, darkness, outlines of rocks…
Wall of the cave, ceiling of the cave…
Here I am sitting on karamat and meditating and not staring at that Swami-ji in Jurisiceva.
I’m in Japan.
I am soon going to be enlightened.
He looked at the modest interior of his hermit’s cave.
“It’s bound to be a lovely sunny day outside and spring has come,” he declared.
If, of course, we start off from the assumption that day exists at all, he thought.

Josip Zanki, 2006

story

Dan kad je Miyamoto Musashi sreo Timothy Learya

Sve počinje od čuvara praga.
Dragi ali pomalo uštogljeni gospodin Samsa, sreo ga je u alkemijskom gradu.
Čuvar praga dirljivom vizijom utjelovljen u Pragu.
Don Juan priča o njemu kao velikom kukcu, možebitno muhi, poglavito insektu.
Daliju i Bunuelu izašao je kroz dlan ruke u Andaluzijskom psu, a to je, kažu, staro kabalističko mjesto iščitanja imena boga i imena čovjeka.

Sve je ovo prolazilo kroz glavu Miyamotu Mushasiju dok je pogledom prelazio skromnu unutrašnjost svoje isposničke špilje.
" Neka ide sve u pičku materinu još se nisam prosvjetlio, a crtam te ogavne pejzaže bambusovim perom već godinama", pomisli Miyamoto.
Karijeru samuraja bijaše već poodavno napustio, prisjećajući se rado odsječenih glava što ga molećivo gledaju ispod njegovih nogu zadnjim krajičcima svijesti.
Kad je bio mali mama mu je pričala priču o Baščeliku.
Sjetio se tipa koji viče "Babo daj glavu!".
Prošlo je užasno puno vremena, znao je da danas "Babom" nazivaju nekog tipa što ima frčkice kao James Brown, i živi u nekoj vukojebini u Indiji povazdan materijalizirajući prašak.
" Pa i ja sam stručnjak za prašak", pomisli Miyamoto, "koga je moj mač dohvatio pretvorio se u prah potpuno, za vijeke vjekova".

Vrati se u položaj meditacije.
Svakako to nazivaju, neki kažu - asana, a neki kažu - utjelovljenje božanske ljubavi.
Pomislio je: "Što ako sam već dugo prosvijetljen i ako sam donio onu glupu odluku da ostanem na zemlji, pomažući drugim dušama u evoluciji i sad mi se čini da sam i dalje u špilji i da nije prošlo mnogo, nego vrlo malo, malo godinať.
Svijest mu se umrtvi, ugleda zlatni prolaz i prebaci se na astral.
"Gle, Leary!", kaže Mushasi i ugleda ga doista kako šeće po nekom "Dina desert planet" krajobrazu. Mrzio je kad mu se SF estetika uvaljuje na astral.
Dolebdio je do njega, i odlučili su putovati zajedno.
Timothy mu teleportira misao da ovaj put on vodi i kako mu ima za pokazati jednu zanimljivu razinu.

Došli su opet do Samse.
Miyamoto je htio Learyja poslati u kurac; nije mu se više dalo voajerski stajati na rubu svjetova i gledati jadnike koji na tripu ponavljaju stalno jedne te iste radnje, i zatim im postavljati smicalice na ovim razinama, uvaljujući im takav film da ih flashbackovi poslije peru godinama.
Shvatio je kako mrzi ovaj jezik, kada biva na astralu zajedno s Learyjem koristi sjevernodalmatinski sleng.
Jezik možeš izabrati prilikom prvog ulaska na određenu razinu i ovaj mu se učinio najbolji za definiranje određena stanja.
Ponuđeni su mi bili i jezici milijun različitih plemena o kojima informacije možeš pronaći samo u Frazerovoj "Zlatnoj grani", ali uživo, brale, ne!
Gledali su dvojnika djevojke koja slika.

"Slikam i ja u jebenoj špilji", kaže Miyamoto, "i nisam baš zbog toga morao dolaziti do praga i gledati usranog mutanta Hieronymusa Boscha osobno kako meditativno pilji u mene i nešto mi želi reći; tako milo gleda, ali mu samo iz usta izlazi bzzz".
Leary zavjerenički stavi prst preko ustiju, htijući mu reći "daj prestani misliti" - pričati i onako ne mogu dok nisu u tijelima.
Nizovi slika okruživali su dvojnika djevojke, napravivši poznati astralni push-up (tip astralne pretvorbe uređen po formuli antimaterija=antienergija), i slike se pretvore u razinu.
" Zaplovimo u njezine svjetove, charter je besplatan", pomisli Miyamoto, "nema usranih skipera, nema jakog vjetra i ne moramo se naginjati".

Brdo.
Prokleto aboridžinsko brdo i gomila australskih životinja, a njemu je već i onih japanskih bilo na vrh glave.
Neki su izgledali kao da si pomiješao južnoameričke vrste s australskima.
" Nije ni čudo", pomisli Miyamoto, "E, ako smo ja i Leary došli u njezine svjetove, onda su ovakvi križanci potpuno normalni".
Protrči Zekoslav Mrkva koji je na ruskom izgovarao tekst "zajec nu pagadi", a za njim i hrpa insekata, anđela, ljama, konja, bivola, mamuta, sobova, tuljana, leptira, pčela na čelu s pčelicom Majom i zaljubljenim Pavom, ovaca, peradi, prijatelja životinja u pettisućitom protestu protiv jedenja istih, biciklista, prijatelja bicikala udruženih u nevladinu udrugu, administratora koji registriraju udruge, dva dječaka s kurcem na nosu braće Chapman, Natasha iz grada Beča zajedno sa svojim dječačkolikim prijateljem, dvije egipatske balzamirane mačke, Borghes s jednim od prijevoda "Tisuće i jedne noći" pod miškom, Stahanov s punom lopatom ugljena...
Pa za njim jebeni Emile Zola i rudari koje je Van Gogh crtao s krumpirima, pa krumpiri osobno marke "Olandež", tajanstveni "ljudi u crnom", Tupac (naravno!) i horde uličnih bandi "from L.A.", bijelo smeće zajedno s prikolicom, inkarnacije 50 joga-gurua praćeni pomahnitalim sljedbenicima, Jehovini svjedoci, Ron i scijentolozi usput ispisujući virmane za učlambu u crkvu, patareni, katari, rozenkrojceri sa sedam inicijacija, Isusovci iz paragvajskih redukcija...
I, na kraju, Osho koji je hodao za svima njima i pleo svoju kapu.
E, na ovu scenu Leary i Miyamoto prasnu od smijeha.

Majka s djetetom.
Sacra familia (činilo mu se da to žabari tako nazivaju); pa on je ipak poluprosvijetljeni bivši samuraj iz špilje koja se nalazi u Japanu.
Frizure su bile iz sedamdesetih.
Ali, to je bio princip u zapadnoj umjetnosti, zar ne?
Božanstva i njihovi roditelji bili su uvjek isti, ali su ih odijevali u suvremena tijela, frizure, odjeću i pejzaže.
Miyamotu je to bilo smiješno, zamišljao je da negdje na teološkim fakultetima postoje stilistički predmeti s naslovom "Kako odjenuti Boga".
Valjda je u Zenu sve bilo jednostavnije.
Početi od ničega puno je jednostavnije nego početi od Boga.
Onda se mučiš s oblicima, moraš ga transcendirati kroz različita tijela i udahnuti mu dušu.
" Mi to radimo krajobrazima", pomisli Miyamoto.

Silueta čovjeka koji sjedi.
" Misli on misli, ovo je neki meditant kao ja", pomisli Miyamoto, kad isto već nije mogao izreći.
A u tipu ponovno one iste životinje, tisuće njih!
Okrene se prema Learyju: možda je sve ovo njegova igra, možda je djevojka za štafelajom jedna od njegovih drugarica.
I sad bi još trebao doći B. i reći "please to meet you, I hope you guess my name" kao usrani Jagger koji u onom kratkom filmu glumi pomahnitalog Aleistera Crowleyja.
I nikako da stavi na glavu onu smiješnu kapu koja nema veze s Oshovim fesom.
Bar da zažvali onu krasoticu, kao na skulpturi što je vidio u Rodinovu muzeju; onako dva fina tijela izlaze iz kamena.
Kvrc, kvrc čini kamen kao ljuštura od jajeta, a ovo dvoje samo što nisu živi.
I zatim se pare, pred tobom.....

Planinski pejzaž.
Ova brda bila su mu poznatija; jako strma oblih vrhunaca s pokojim zakrivljenim borom na padinama.
Stapanje. Leary je iskoristio jednu od njezinih slika da se vrate u razine blizu stvarnog svijeta.
Spiralna vrtnja, kao kad ti u slastičarnici stavljaju kuglicu sladoleda.
" Možda je gospodar inkarnacije iz Tetova, odatle dolaze dobri sladoledariť, pomisli Miyamoto, "pa je zato sve stvorio spiralno, prolaz kroz svjetove, DNK, maternicu, labirint, kurac svinje..."
Ode drugar...
Nije mu zapjevao, jer sastat će se opet garantirano i sudbinski.
" Tako mi piše u zvijezdama", cinično procijedi Miyamoto.
Planine, nebo, tama, obrisi stijenja....
Stijene špilje, svod špilje...
Tu sam, sjedim na karamatu i meditiram, ne buljim u Svamiđija u Jurišićevoj.
Ja sam u Japanu.
Uskoro se trebam prosvijetliti.

Pogledao je skromnu unutrašnjost svoje isposničke špilje.
" Vani je sigurno krasan sunčani dan i došlo je proljeće!", izrekne.
Ako, naravno, krenemo od pretpostavke da dan uopće postoji, pomisli...

Josip Zanki, 2006