Zoran MUSIC
| Slovenian painter and engraver |
1909, Bukovina, present-day Slovenia – 2005, Venice
We look to Music to give us a different picture of Celnikier. Their closeness holds us back less than their differences. The former claims to have become an artist in 1944, in Dachau, by discreetly drawing what he saw, which 26 years later came back to torment him, in a vision he titles “We are not the last”; sketched corpses reunited afterwards in a Dantesque vision, “… The worst thing is that it’s beautiful.”
Music’s art oscillates between appearing and disappearing, apparition and representation… we receive it as Western art, which carries in its figures twenty centuries of Christian theology and its negative prestiges inherited from the Tsimtsum – but inherited without knowing it?
Isaac Celnikier says no, no to the matrix-like mists of apparition, no to chiaroscuro, no to the declension of contrasts, no to skilfully modulated etchings. His art is one of reduction, of creative asceticism… has he ever remembered that, in his language, “non” is a mirror image of “vers”, of “aller vers” (to go towards) (the truth). Celnikier’s engravings offer neither return nor beauty.
In short, we love these two artists for the paradoxes that make the difference between them. To see Celnikier in a different light is to admire him more, and to demand greater recognition for his work.
Main exhibitions
- 1995 | Le Grand Palais, Paris, exhibition inaugurated by French President François Mitterrand and Slovenian President Milan Kucan. Exhibition taken over by the National Gallery of Ljubljana.
- 1977-94 | Retrospective exhibitions in Damstadt, Germany, 1977. – Salzburg and Vienna, Austria, 1985, 92. – Trieste, Turin, Basel…
- 1975-76 | Touring exhibition in France – Thirty artists, including Pierre ALECHINSKY, Olivier DEBRE, Hans HARTUNG, Roberto MATTA, Edouard PIGNON, Pierre SOULAGES.
- 1974 | Retrospective exhibitions in Milan, Venice and Madrid.
- 1972 | First retrospective of a living painter at the Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris.
- 1958 | Salon des Réalités Nouvelles.
- 1957 | Prize for engraving at the second international engraving exhibition in Ljubljana.
- 1956-57 | Rapprochement with the non-figuration of the new Ecole de Paris; participation with friends in this school’s major international exhibitions.
- 1956 | Grand Prix for printmaking at the Venice Biennale.
- 1955 | Ljubljana Print Biennial. First Documenta, Kassel.
- 1953 | Salon de Mai, Paris. Works in BRASSAÏ’s studio (where SOUTINE is said to have painted his Bœuf écorché ).
- 1952 | First public solo exhibition at Galerie Myriam Prévot and Gildo Caputo. Contract followed by a dozen exhibitions up to and including 1981.
- 1951 | Painting prize awarded by the “Prix Paris” organized in Cortina d’Ampezzo by the Italian Cultural Center in Paris (jury: ZATKINE, ARLAND, André CHASTEL, Jean BOURET, Frank ELGAR).
Illustrated works
- 1991 | Nous ne sommes pas les derniers”, text and seven etchings, Lacourière-Frélaut ed., Paris.
- 1986 | Drypoint frontispiece for – Tacite reconduction de soi, Zoran Music”, text by Yves Peyré, L’Ire des vents ed.
- 1983 | Three engravings for – Pente douce, text by Georges LAMBRICHS, La Différence ed., Paris.
- 1981 | Sechs Ansichten des Canale della Giudecca, text and six aquatints by the artist. Preface: Peter HANDKE. Hans Widrich ed., Salzburg, Austria.
- 1981 | Five etchings for – Approches, text by Charles Juliet, Fata Morgana ed., Montpellier.
- 1974 | Seven lithographs for – Cadastre de cadavres, text by René DE SOLIER, Cerastico ed., Milano, Italy.
- 1972 | Twenty-six original drawings for – Penser contre soi, text by Alain BOSQUET, Galanis ed., Paris.
Works in private and public collections
Italy
- Bergame : GaMeC gallery
- Bologne : Museo Morandi. Galleria d’Arte Moderna
- Rome : Galleria nazionale
- Venise : Galleria internazionale d’Arte Moderna, Ca’Pesaro.
United States
- New York : Museum of Modern Art
- San Francisco : Fine Arts Museum
- Pittsburg : Carnegie Institute
- Cambridge : MIT List Visual Arts Center.
France
- Paris : Musée national d’art moderne. Galerie Claude Bernard
- Caen : Musée des Beaux-arts
- Le Havre : Musée des beaux-arts-André Malraux.
Swiss
- Bâle : KunstmuseumVevey : Musée Jenish
- Genève : Galerie Krugier & Cie
- Neuchâtel : galerie Ditesheim
England
- Londres : Tate Modern
Spain
- Madrid : Musée Thyssen-Bornemisza.
Fragments of a bibliography
- 2001 | Jean CLAIR – La Barbarie ordinaire. Arléa éd., 2001
- 2019 | Maryse EMEL. – L’art de Zoran Music : un linceul pour l’humanité. nonfiction.fr/le quotidien des livres et des idées éd. en ligne, 31 janvier 2019
- 1978 | Jean LESCURE – Music, témoin de l’émotion, in « Galerie des Arts » no 180, Paris
- 1970 | W. SANDBERG, préface à – Nous ne sommes pas les derniers, Galerie de France, Paris
- 1963 | Jean GRENIER – Entretiens avec dix-sept peintres non figuratifs, Calmann-Lévy éd., Paris
- 1960 | Georges CHARBONNIER, entretien avec Music, in – Le Monologue du peintre, Julliard éd., Paris.
