Vuk Vidor


Vuk Vidor, is a Franco-Serbian artist.

Life

Vuk Vidor is the son of the painter, illustrator and engraver Vladimir Veličković and the older brother of artist Marko Velk. Born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1965, he studied architecture at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts de Paris-Tolbiac and graduated in 1990. He shows several of his utopian and conceptual architectural projects alongside pioneers such as Zaha Hadid, Morphosis, Coop Himmelblau, Eric Moss... In 1992, Vuk Vidor decides to turn to painting. A series of drawing he started in 1989 and entitled " King Ink " often serves as the basis for his works.

Work

Artistic practice

Vidor's work is characterized by its eclecticism. His reflexion about life and death is prominent in a series of paintings entitled " Ascendance " that depicts interconnected skulls. It is a way to represent emotional, historical or even cosmic connexions between beings. His works are full of irony. The " Everlast " series is about the 4 ages of life : childhood, Adulthood, old age and death. He works with several mediums, mostly painting and drawing, but sometimes sculpture or installation as well. In 2000 he contributed to an exhibition about the color red, symbolizing eros, blood and violence.
In 2015, Vuk Vidor created an exhibition around a fictitious industrial and scientist, Thomas Jerome Newton, a character from the 1976 movie The Man Who Fell to Earth. He built a story around the character, pretending that he was about to give an interview to Time Magazine. He feigned to have had access to the character's archives and exhibited documents about him. David Bowie, who impersonates Thomas Jerome Newton in the movie, is omnipresent in the exhibition. Vuk Vidor had previously focused on another icon, the singer and musician Elvis Presley, whose name he had changed to ‘Evils’.
Vuk Vidor has worked with musicians Goran Bregović and Marc Cerrone, and English rock band Duran Duran. He directed numerous music clips in Serbia in the 90s. In 2006, he directed a vido clip about greed for the launch of the Chrysler 300.

Committed art

Vuk Vidor is a committed and political artist. In 2003 he takes side for the Refugees in an installation called Serbia Remix Project. The subject of the installation is a blue, white, and red striped plastic bag. This bag is according to him, a common feature of every victim of modern conflicts. His work is fraught with historical references and frequently deals with the idea of war. He has built a gold statue of himself in an attempt to reflect both on his ego as an artist. and on Serbian nationalism.
In a 2009 series entitled " American Quartet ", he delivers his own vision of the United States. Through figures of weary Superheroes, he denounces the myth of the Frontier and the omnipotence of the US. becomes an Atlas-like figure, bearing on his shoulder not the world but the American Dream. Jesus is also part of the exhibition, but is shown crucified to Shareholders. The inspiration of his post 9/11 world comes from pop art and American comics – a genre he likes to parody. He twists American symbols and turns heroes into useless villains. He exhibits his works in the United States to force Americans to face their contradictions. He intends to show that today " even super-heroes cannot save us ". Generally speaking, his work constantly interrogates the place of humanity in the universe.

Conception of art

Vuk Vidor's vision of art is sometimes controversial. " Vuillard was better than Bonnard, same for Tapiès, Rauschenberg used to be better, Twombly has always painted crap, Bacon was better when he was alive. ", he said in a 1999 manifesto-like work entitled " Art history ". In 2007 he co-signed an editorial in the French newspaper L’Humanité, criticizing how the French Ministry for Culture was contributing to create a normalized and monopolistic " official art ". He spoke against the " masked puppeteers " who are imposing diktats of fashion and trends in the art world. He asked for a fair repartition of temporary exhibition spaces. His work is transgressive : he even directed erotic videos.
In 2012, Vuk Vidor created the under-realist movement with Kosta Kulundzic, a Franco-American artist of Serbian origin, and the French artist Stéphane Pencréac’h. The movement is a reaction against the over-conceptualisation of contemporary painting. For them, the image is more important than the idea. The under-realism is a grouping of artists who share the same vision of the artist's condition and are trying to free themselves from the diktats of market and trends.

Recognition

Vuk Vidor was awarded the Ito Ham Prize in 1986.
He was awarded the International Painting Prize of Vitry-sur-Seine in 1996.

Exhibitions

Solo shows