Marjan Denkov – “I don’t give a sheet!” & “I can do it!”
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Artist statement: “Trash is not being trash in a trash society and still attracts attention.” The violence and the nudity aren’t shocking and scandalizing any more but the moment of unpredictability and surprise is! This very moment I’m interested in art’s role in social life and its objectives. “What is the art about?” For me art has to do with changing contexts and creating atmospheres and universes but I am really not interested in putting a piece of wood in a gallery space. I don’t want to do what you expect from me! I’m interested in the difference between what I expect and what really happens. Quite often I really wonder if I should stop doing this but probably I still have something to say in art. In my work I filter personal experiences and go as far as the visual presentation allows. My current preoccupations are the relations between the ephemeral and the value of the message. What I am actually trying to do, is using what I have learned and by doing this – satisfy my need to create something, behind which I could later stand and present myself as an author. Marjan Denkov |
“Marjan Denkov has everything to gain a prominent place on the current art scene. Unique pieces, original forms, presence in museums, newspaper articles. His punk approach, packed in a very accessible envelope, provokes numerous articles.
Newly formed at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in Christian Boltanski’s and Claude Closky’s workshops, Marjan Denkov’s work is already exhibited in different museums, art centers and European salons.
Conquering Thessaloniki up to Texas via Bucharest, Barcelona, Brussels, Skopje, Warsaw, Berlin and Paris, the artist reveals our insides and exposes our dreams.
During the three previous editions of the contemporary art fair of Montrouge, he was noticed for his corrosive spirit in the form of performances bearing aesthetic appearances,” writes the art critic Caroline TSARAS.
“The works of Marjan Denkov relate to his experiences and are often accompanied by youthful humour and subversive irony.
His work made for “C’est à côté”, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Paris, The MAC / VAL in 2006, sparked off a predictable controversy. He created a scandal and saw his portrait – of sulky baby babbling: “Contemporary art is boring and I’m tired of pretending that I like it” – censored.
With its absurd assumption that even a baby can utter a critical opinion about contemporary art, it is controversial, precisely because it simultaneously reflects the desire of a young artist to distance him/ herself from the art system and his/her desire to belong to this very system. This kind of ambivalence is one of the most specific features of Denkov’s work that speaks of certain maturity, combining irony with libidinal desire.
The main ingredients for his COOK BOOK recipes, or advice, derive from his short, but rich, artistic career,” (from Young and Already Bored by Art, critique for NO BORDERS just NEWS, by Suzana MILEVSKA).
