Krunoslav Dundović / Hidden Spaces

Searching for Space –  the Revelation of the Hidden

Observing Krunoslav Dundović’s graphics from the cycle „Hidden Spaces¨“ I found myself in doubt how to understand the name of the cycle itself.  The name refers to the fact that the graphics are a presentation of spaces that are hidden (somewhere). I am able to accept this fact without too much reluctance but the offered answer leeds me to a new question: „Where are Dundović’s spaces hidden?“, or: „Have his spaces been existing before he reveals them, or, do they owe their existence to the author’s skill of finding spatiality?“ Referring to Mladen Pejaković, Dundović experiences his own graphics as morphogenic fields; areas that generate new forms. In order to create a new visual form it is necessary to bring it into the space, and this space is, in Dundović’s case, the chosen format – the framed „hidden“ space.  The format is not only the frame where the space is inscribed but also the precondition for  its inscription. Dundović formulates this adroitly with the following words: „I start working by choosing the format not by drawing the first line.“ So, where are Dundović’s spaces hidden?  On one side we could say that they are hidden in the format, allthough the seemingly unlimited possibilities tranform the format into a inexhaustible generator of new forms. On the other side it could be said that they are hidden in the author, who implements the chosen possibilities offered by the format. However, thanks to the enviable balance of the compositions that Dundović finds within the chosen (or defined) format, I am more likely to believe that in the author’s treatment of the blank plate after all there is not a scale of limitless possibilities – he finds a relatively limited amount of forms in them, which are, like a composition, gnerated by his artistic being. For that reason I would dare to utter that the exposed „spaces“ are inasmuch immanent in both the format and the author and that their „hiddenness“ is not conditioned by just one of the mentioned factors.

After  dealing with the issue of „hiddenness“, I will address another important  aspect of Dundović’s spaces – their revelation. Allthough, when mentioning the phrase „hidden spaces“ for the first time, we could think that there are spaces that need to be discovered, explored or found, in this case we notice that they need to be created. It is logical that the ontological priority of existence (and surely of creation) belongs to the author. Dundović is not only the revealing subject; he is also the creating subject. His search for space is not terminated by the discovery of space but by its creation. Space presumes extensibility, and if there is a lack of it, the existence of space as an entity will be questionable. Format, cadre, „the blank plate“ or whatever the physical surface of the author’s act of creation is called, is not space until something is written/drawn on it… before that it is just a basis that forms and that the „picture space“ is formed in.

The author’s target is the revealed space. He does not create space in order to fill it with events because he does not place living characters into it, assuring a background for their lifes in that way. The vita activa of these graphics is exclusively the breathing of space and not the occurences that take place in this space. And the breathing of these spaces is also the breathing of the author himself.

„The format as a morfo-genetic field“, explains Dundović, „allows me to form new realitiees which emanate from the format itself, but are a result of my experimentations, studies and researches of the possibilities of finding my own artistic expression, and the detection as of my inner being so the nature of art by using artistic elements as the main support of the work of beaux arts.“ According to this we can notice that the search for any semantic upgrade of these works of art would be inessential because Dundović does not have any pretensions to inscribe meaning in the created spaces. This tells us that we are dealing with an analytical author whose experimentaton and research are something more than a mere „attempt“. The „hidden spaces“ do not reproduce space – especially not the physical one – but form the „picture space“ where universal art theories of format and composition are valid. Exactly that is their deep semantics but also their persuasiveness.

Igor Loinjak
prijevod: Susana Dundović, prof. engleskog i njemačkog jezika