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MILAN MARINKOVIĆ CILE takes a look full of anxiety upon our world. However, his behaviour is joyfull, carefull, pleasant and charming. He is the proper example of the dual personality that an artist represents. (...) The painter brings, into broad daylight, the theatreof his duality. In this way Cile’s canvases put, on the stage, a hundred personalities who come from Heaven or from Purgatory, even perhaps from Hell, which glare with life or sin, which talk to us or answer us, which incite or amuse us. They all tell us about a mystical «other», beyond Time and Space, unveiling mad desires, aspirations from dreams, wishes, situations, behaviour, form and colours outside norm, which make up a dimension that could be oneiric, but which is in any case a strong expression of a great artistic talent. André PARINAUD Paris, the 8th of may 1996
Paris, the 16 of july 2000 Milan Marinkovi Cile, painter Cile Marinković lives in France since 1992. His first exhibition here was in 1976. The work of art of that painter belongs to the legacy of the important mouvements of the XXth century, primarily the expressionism, that made the quality of the European art and the recognition of Paris as an international leading art scene . Bernard Goy, Director of FRAC Ile de France
Cile or the Slavic expressionism Out of all European countries, France is the most restrained, the most reserved towards expressionism, according to antipodes of its aesthetic feeling, its painting tradition, based on measure, balance and harmony. It used to be like that with the German, Austiran, Flamand expressionists, but also with the artists who lived in France, such as Soutine. Slavic expressionism is still «terra incognita» here, in France. That is one reason more to be interested in Cile, a painter from Serbia, who decided in 1992, after his first stay in Paris in 1977, to live there as well. If his work experienced changes and felt the movement of the sprint of time, it remained extraordinary coherent thanks to its expressivness, its strenght, it can even be said its force. In the seventies, after he had graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Cile was inspired, as many artists of his generation were, by Pop Art. His works are painted by evenly applied bright colours, that cannot help reminding of Hockney or Kitaj, with the scenes of everyday’s life: from the beach and coffee bars, with motorcyclists, provocative women with their hair swaying in the wind, as the main motives. He paints the well-known world of Belgrade bohemians, youthfull optimism, and the climate of carelessness with the spirit of modernism. In his creative passion, he uses sometimes some materials which are at hand: canvas for «chaise longue» or insulation boards of grinded plywood. During the eighties, the satire of joy and participation in youthfull modernism will give up its place to ever more disturbed and ill-humoured expressionism. To the characters with heavy forms, uncompleted, sometimes only hinted, painted with feverish and furious wide strokes. To sombre faces with paralysed look, often stiffed in a grimace. To deformed creatures that look like cut up marionettes, to the children with serious faces, who lost all innocence, immobile like puppets. The palette of colours will get dark, and the colours will mix up, even fade away. We also remember Soutine. Is it a period of maturation of the artist or the presentiment of the civil war which will soon split Yugoslavia, with all agony and fears? After he had settled in Paris in 1992, his painting would not gain in optimism, but in dynamism. It will become more lively, more nervous, and also with less recognizable forms. Cile makes the scenes with abiguous characters, sometimes with great erotic charge, where he mocks the game of presenting appearance, and brutally presents social theater where each actor swaggers in his funny loneliness. Here and there, Cile borrows something from the Trans-Avant Garde. However, one cannot find neither superficial elegance, nor wish to dance, that characterize Italian painters. There only remains mocking, hindered with muffled melancholy. The ridiculous constantly flirts with the tragic. Some people sometimes remarked the closeness of Cile’s painting and German expressionism due to his strength and the sharp criticism of the society. If exaggeration and increase of emotions really exist, that lyricism which is typical of German artists cannot be found in his works. On the contrary, some profound humanity is apparent, an exceptional sensitiveness hidden under the mask of the burlesque, and the mocking, one a bit unbelivable vitality where enthusiasm is replaced by despair, and laughter with tears. According to his traditional topics: coffee bars, prostitutes, cyclists, clowns, Cile’s painting reminds of the expressionistic painting at the beginning of the twentieth century. It has deeply taken its roots in «old Europe», the one before the consumers’ society and the technological changes, but it expresses itself by postmodern language with very strong Slavic accent. YVES KOBRY
It is said that the painter Milan Marinkovic CILE belongs to the «moderate» wing of the Belgrade New Figuration which is a continuation of the expressionist tradition.It is true that Cile uses all the classical expressionist tools in his paintings - pure colour, simplified form, space reduced to surface, gestual movement, abundant coats of colour... Speaking about the «style» of Cile’s paintings, it is evident that questions relating to subject-matter, the imaginary world reflected and its mythology are far more relevant than the form used for expressing it. Although without conscious critical pretensions, Cile Marinkovic unveils the personality of the young generation, achieving, thus indirectly, critical reflexion. It is certain that Cile Marinkovic is our only authentic interpreter of the intimate world of the young drifter, belonging to the confused punk generation, and the true portraitist of its protagonists, the smiling little ladies from Crveni Krst, the frivolous Paris homosexuals, tame junkies, hairy rockers and passers-by from Knez Mihailova street. Djordje Kadijević Art Critic |
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