Boris Demur, Spiral Transcendence

It is our pleasure to invite you to the exhibition Spiral Transcendence by Boris Demur, marking the 10th death anniversary of this great Croatian painter and post-conceptual artist. The exhibition opening is on Tuesday, July 16th 2024., at 9 pm and it will run until August 18th, 2024.

Spiral cosmogony is Boris Demur’s artistic forte, in which a monumental helix takes precedence over all other forms. Imbuing it with a profoundly spiritual dimension, the artist reminds us that everything that surrounds us is contained in the spiral. Starting with the spiral of Archimedes, a planar transcendental curve; through DNA, the fundamental high-molecular organic compound in the form of double helical strands carrying the hereditary properties in the cells of living beings; and finally, to the Milky Way, the spiral galaxy containing the planet Earth. Whether it is desert sand dunes, sea waves, or leaves in the wind, the artist finds natural analogies of spiral forms in active memory. In the context of studying and deeply analysing procedural proto-forms, it is difficult to bypass other elements that can be found in nature and not mention the meanders of Julije Knifer or the circles of Dubravka Rakoci. Like Demur’s spiral, these forms repeatedly bring us back to the source of everything, that first principle in which, through reduction, we discard the excess of conglomerate content. By reducing the motif to the simplest pictorial form, the artist began to study that line imbued with spirituality, a process that would last for many years.

I am an eternal student. I do nothing but study. Boris Demur embarked on his permanent study of spiral as the archetypal form following an intuitive realization in 1983, where, between dreams and reality, the spiral appeared to him as a spiritual form that he would remain focused upon until the end of his life. The spiral, as a natural analogy of his artistic memory, conceptualizes the idea that everything is contained in that curved line that describes equal turns around its axis or, ultimately, coils endlessly around a central point. Reflecting on art as a method, in the context of human activity, was present in all phases of Demur’s artistic path, and he considered awareness and spirituality, as the unique meaning of art, to be integral elements of real life. The laboratory of ideas that lived in his active artistic memory were an inexhaustible source and energetic fluid in a spiral flow. Demur’s deep immersion into his own mind, through which he communicated intimately with the artistic legacy of the master of action painting Jackson Pollock, and the experimental anthropometrics of Yves Klein, were a legitimate appropriation in which this eternal student, the pioneer of analytical and poor painting in Croatia, absolved spiral action painting and spiral anthropometry.

The exhibition Spiral Transcendence is a unique morphological paradigm revealing Boris Demur as an authentic artistic phenomenon. The painting process remained his permanent focus, in which most of the spirals were painted with hands and fingers, leaving imprints in acrylic on canvas. Paintings from a private collection, exhibited in the Kravata gallery, provide insight into the thoughts of this painter and post-conceptual artist. He remained permanently faithful to the processuality and materiality of painting even though he rejected the conventional painterly working tools. Demur’s preoccupation with subjects from nature, alluding to the intertwining of everything that surrounds us and the existence of some higher power, acquires additional spiritual dimension through the archetypal symbol of the cross. The humanized symbol in the form of arms intersecting at right angles symbolizes suffering and life’s difficulties, testifying in this function to the permeation of the orthodox and the paradox. By exploring these two opposites, the artist introduces us to the beauty of life and art as a spiritual anthropological domain, at the same time discreetly expressing his religious affiliation and belief in eternal life. The transition from one life to another is presented as a spiral tunnel.

Boris Demur (Zagreb, 1951-2014) began his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1970, where he graduated painting in 1975, in the class Prof. Raul Goldoni, and graphic arts in 1977, in the class of Prof. Albert Kinert. From 1975 to 1977, he was an associate of the Master Workshop of Prof. Ljubo Ivančić. He was a prominent representative of primary painting in Croatia, and from 1983 until his death in 2014, he focused on the motif of the spiral. He was one of the founders of the Group of Six Artists (1975-1981), which included Vlado Martek, Željko Jerman, Fedor Vučemilović, Sven Stilinović, and Mladen Stilinović. He spent shorter and longer artist residences in various artistic centres, including Rome, Venice, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Verona, São Paulo, Guarujá, Heidelberg, and Frankfurt. Following the 23^rd International Biennale in São Paulo in 1996, he was awarded the Order of Croatian Danica bearing the effigy of Marko Marulić. He won a number of high awards and recognitions. His artworks are part of permanent collections in prestigious museums and galleries, as well as numerous private collections in Croatia and abroad. The large exhibition Retrospective I, opened in March 2004 in Zagreb’s Modern Gallery, featured about 360 of his works created between 1970 and 2000. The highlight of the exhibition was Demur’s spiral paintings created in the 1990s, represented by one of the largest works at the exhibition, the spiral painting Requiem for Croatia from 1991, part of the Modern Gallery’s permanent collection. From 1975, Demur participated in 384 group exhibitions in the country and abroad. He also had 83 solo exhibitions and 112 solo actions and performances.

Exhibition curator: Dominik Duboković