Predrag Caranovic sculptures Sep. 2014 | Page 118

janovic later on formulated the idea of the modern art as the propaganda of the West. She wrote a perfect essay. I was not aware of it at the time, but unconsciously I had the same idea. I particularly liked the communist flag, for I bore in mind that the first exhibition of the abstract art in the USSR was not held in a gallery, but at the Institute for Nuclear Physics and thanks to the director of the Institute. His belief was that the scientists could not understand the nucleus of the atom and the relativity theory without understanding the abstraction first. I adored soc-realism in many ways. First of all, for the technology. There exists, in Zemun, in a park, a sculpture of a bomber that is standing on the fingers of his one foot. Today no one can absolutely make a similar monument. That was true artisan mastery. They were made by the artists that learned their art before the war and they were perfect artisans. On the other hand, it wasn’t as perfect, because they were ideologically biased. The quality of it derives from the fact that you cannot copy such a work, you cannot recreate it, for you must love what you do to do it the way it was done. I love that soc-realist sculpture only for those strong passions that the artists brought into their work. Our entire monumental legacy was made by the artists formed after the War. They were not such strong artisans. I believe that the soc-realists did not follow the events, but themselves. Of course, they were all formal artists, but they added character to their art. Only few of their names survived. Most of those names were unknown to me. They were good artisans. They had to know how to cast the cement, how to include it with the ambient. Bogdan Bogdanovic didn’t win first prizes by accident. But, as Olga Jevric wins the prize, you cannot reproduce it. Technological possibilities and events would not permit it. What happened in the mid ‘80’s? Tie, 1999 118 That’s when I stopped exhibiting due to the incompatibility with my work at the Museum. I continued exhibiting only after year 2000. I did not exhibit for fifteen years. I worked at the Museum from 1986. until the bombing. It was very hard to find work at the Museum because there were graded lists for employment. Before me, they employed several persons, some with merit, and some without. We applied at the same time. I was accepted only after my third attempt. I was applying at all times because I possessed all the necessary requirements. At the time I was accepted, the director was Zoran Gavric. When Zoran Gavric was at the Museum, the work was intense and without pressures of a kind. It was a pleasure to work. We all knew what our work was and well. It was the time of