Marko Stojanovic was born on 1st May 1982; the fact which proudly speaks about a number of anthological works of famous artists (see under entry On Kawara for example). He studied (and graduated in 2006) graphic design at the Academy of Fine Art in Novi Sad. He has been present on the art scene for years with his works/projects 1st May 1982, Hajduk Veljko vs. Hamlet, Art Food, According to Marko, ‘Belaji’,… He has held exhibitions in Negotin, Novi Sad, Sremska Mitrovica, Belgrade, Skopje and Singapore. He works in Serbia and Montenegro, in the Balkans, Europe, the World and the Cyber Space.
Dejan Radanovic vs. Marko Stojanovic (et vice versa)
---What do you mean by TOTAL DESIGN – A TOTAL ARTISTIC SHAPING or A UNIVERSAL ARTISTIC ACT?
---If it refers to graphic design, which I studied, then it is a universal artistic act. The attitude imposed on me is that I’m primarily a visual artist, with all I have accomplished in the field so far, which I turn into design easily. The person commissioning me should be satisfied with the very fact he hired me – and in itself with the TOTAL DESIGN too.
---Explain your attitude towards BRAND on the example of your work Hajduk Veljko vs. Hamlet.
---I used the signs on businesses I found in Negotin, the town still celebrating its ‘hero’ (Serbian naïve art- Serbian naïve design). These are lovely signs of a fitness centre, a hospital, restaurants, etc. As well as Almodovar’s wallpapers, flowers and two types of men – male body. Hamlet (global hero) with tender blue flowers. A body builder with lips sensually apart, a saber and a moustache + voluptuous purple flowers as Hajduk Veljko (local hero). If I build up my body, do I become a BRAND?
---What is your reaction to misinterpretation of your work?
---There is no misinterpretation. There is no ‘everybody can’… in his own way.
Audience (professors, critics or colleagues – laymen are never wrong) prefer to describe it with the easiest terms of IRONY and FLIRTING WITH KITSCH. Both are totally superficial because my works show only the things I like seeing most on the screen. The things I like cannot be kitsch.
We’ll see how many misinterpretations there’ll be in Realized New Needlepoint…
---How a macho symbol negates the very essence of machismo?
---An overly ambitious symbol can start symbolizing itself. It contradicts itself. Am I what I say or I’m not? And vice versa.
---Nice. Tell us whether your research and promotion of the quality, sense … is serous due to humour?
---There is a lot of humour in my work. Or it’s a misinterpretation. Maybe the right word is demystification. My work often provokes smiles, as long as you are thinking on the level of witticism. However, in my work Jesus from the book According to Marko for example, it is not humour, but rather a demystification of an icon and my fight for the right to work for the Serbian Orthodox Church. Is it tilting with windmills? I want (dream about) the Sent Sava Church to be richer (in my works) than the Museum of Contemporary Art. Dejan Radovanovic

The independent artistic association Izba is proudly presenting the exhibition of a young artist who is looking at a promising future in the field of graphical design. A four-year student of the Novi Sad Academy of Fine Arts, Marko Stojanovic, has designed a series of drawings entitled ‘101 A4’, enveloping works made between 2001 and 2004. The works are displayed in transparent folders, like documents, and one segment is even packed into a binder – a catalogue which can be leafed. The common format is A4, except for a classical drawing and in some cases different kinds of build-up such as collage or photographs extended by pencil or pastel shades of tempera.
- This is a selection of my works since 2001, since the beginning of my studies up to now, and I have chosen this format because I prefer to work on white A4 paper. I never choose only one medium, drawing, painting, print, digital method or something else I am interested in; it is always a matter of moment and feeling. My interests change periodically and in cyclic intervals – Stojanovic says, adding that most of his works seem to be made ‘in passing’, which actually was the case. They were created in different circumstances and situations which can happen to a young man and artists. Some, on the other hand, are the result of continuous work done very quickly, so one can notice several series of drawings sharing the same theme. But they all have one thing in common – provocation.
- In the series of drawings with columns in which my bust is placed upon is designed to irritate the audience, play with my own ego, placing it in the foreground, into the category of the greatest artists of our time. Therefore, in one of the pictures I placed myself next to Marina Abramovic who I consider to be one of our greatest artists. I applied the same system in the serial with elements of tabloids and show business tackling the established taboo in academic circles, where subjects of ‘cheap art and entertainment’ are simply not advisable to mention, Marko claims, answering all controversial questions equally – with ‘Why not?’.     
It is a rare opportunity to see a young artist and still a student drawing the attention of the public, and his work receiving extremely positive appraisals from colleges and art critics. Stojanovic has also succeeded in this with his earlier independent exhibitions Hajduk Veljko vs. Hamlet and 1st May 1982 (the date of his birth in Negotin). As he himself says, they helped him understand some processes in creating works of art. Besides personal ideas, he also used the works of some other contemporary artists emphasizing his interpretation of art as a collective heritage. As he concluded, the awareness of art in a human individual is born as far back as the embryonic phase, and later its expansion follows the stages of human society, civilization and art.
- A child paints in the style of a caveman, with consciousness there comes a phase of discovery and the imitation of traditional artistic greats, and when you meet modern artists you become aware of your own ideas, which sets you free and drives you to create something you really carry inside – says the artist who sees the key to success in finding new ideas within the framework of ones field of interest. He sees himself in the future, after his studies and possibly a masters degree, in the editorial staff of a magazine he would like to design, according to his own taste. Magazines are the thing he is most interested in.
Zlatomir Gajic

Presstojanovic - press & publications