Rashi Popov Monument – cheerful, aggressive, naive and insecure – Culture

The monument to the writer and publicist Rasha Popov, which has already been placed on the plateau of the same name in Ulica 27. Marta, will be ceremoniously inaugurated on Saturday at 1 pm, as announced by the Municipal Administration.

The sculpture was made by the self-taught and naive Boris Deheljan, and is composed of screws, nuts, fittings and wires. The idea that Deheljan is the author of this monument came from the Belgrade City Administration, which invited him because they recognized in his work the sensitivity that best suits the theme of the task.

His gift and skill were also recognized by sculptor Viktor Kish, artistic director of Festival 9, now acting director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, who also creates in a similar way, according to the website Gradnja.rs, which he first published. photos of the monument to Rasa Popov.

They immediately attracted attention on social media and provoked various comments, from positive to negative to extreme confusion, because for many it was difficult to formulate an attitude.

Most artists and art historians were in no mood to make their assessment because, as they say, they have not yet seen the monument live.

Commenters who like to express their opinion with emoticons on social media mostly reacted to the astonished “wou”, there were also a considerable number of emoticons dying of laughter, only a few angry and crying.

The sculptor and professor at the Belgrade Faculty of Fine Arts Rados Antonijevic says for Danas that the main reason for saying something about the Rasa Popov monument is that there is always a lot of speculation about public monuments and little concrete talk in the local public, for what the lay public remains confused. “

According to him, that public expects people who are professionals to express their position clearly and argumentatively so that they can form an opinion.

“Several things seemed important to me about this sculpture.” It goes down to the street, it has a very low pedestal and this principle of placing the sculpture at the level of the observer and somewhere in its actual size is known from “Citizens of Kale” when Roden lowered his sculpture lower to change the view and for, in a way, democratized the relationship between those who observe and what is observed. In our country, as such and a very good example, there is a well-known monument to Ivo Andrić in Andrićev venac, which was quietly and excellently erected by the sculptor Milenko Mandić. And that’s the only similarity to this monument to Rasha Popov, says Antonijevic.

According to him, this type of monument, which descends low, must be processed in such a way as to be safe for the public, and it seems to him that this is not the case with the sculpture of Rasha Popov.

– It seems to me that in that processing sense, this monument is aggressive, so I wonder if it is safe enough. I think especially of that part of the umbrella that was left in the raw material. In general, when establishing the forms that the audience can come into contact with, these forms are expected to be “friendly.” With bronze it is easier but with welded elements it is more difficult to do. I see that the author also tried to invest concentration and time cooking nuts, and that is the best-executed part of the sculpture, and the rest, unfortunately, looks like a kind of collage where elements such as hair are inserted, a book that is not made happily. There is also that duality in this sculpture: one part is made one way, and all the other elements seem to apply to it. This disintegrates the whole picture and makes it unstable. That is the biggest flaw of this monument and that the proportions were lost somewhere in the procedure itself, notes Radoš Antonijević.

The sculptor Milorad Mića Stajčić says that he did not see the monument live, but only in photographs, that he likes the idea of ​​showing Rasa Popov according to his cheerful character, but also has objections.

– Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to see the sculpture live, but only in photographs. What I like about her is the author’s idea of ​​presenting Rasha in a way consistent with her cheerful character. I like those glasses, a hat and an umbrella, and even that way of making them with wires, something rare in a monumental sculpture. And now the negative: my head and hands seem too small, the position of my legs is wrong, the way the curtains fall should have been better resolved. My general impression is that the author has potential, but lacks basic knowledge of anatomy, which has as a consequence that the sculpture seems too naive and unsuitable for the purpose of marking in public space – thinks Stjacic.

The Gradnja.rs portal states that the public got to know Deheljan’s work at Festival 9 and that it is good because in the world this type of sculpture is not alien, while this “style” in our environment has almost no actors.

“The then city planner Milutin Folić saw that the materialization of Boris’ characters resembled a child’s game of fitting puzzles, cubes or other motor elements, which was enough for the artist Deheljan to receive an invitation to work on monument to Rasa Popov, “says Gradnja.rs. In the same text, Boris Deheljan points out that making his sculptures is not an easy job and that he regrets even more that educated artists underestimate the work of self-taught creators. According to Deheljan, a sculpture requires “four to six months of dedication and hard physical work.”

“The material may not be bronze, but it comes at a price, especially if more than 10,000 large queens are used for a sculpture, which give the desired materialization through additional polishing. Of course, there are other materials such as nails, screws and wire, which form other details that give the characters a recognizable line ”, Deheljan explained for Gradnja rs.

As a model for the sculpture of Popov, a photograph was taken in which the poet, carried by the rain and the wind, walks the streets of Belgrade with an umbrella in one hand and a book in the other.… The famous poet passed the most of his life in that part of Belgrade.

Related texts: