Bogdan Borčić: Abstract and Lyrical Coastal Compositions

13th Exhibition of the Bogdan Borčić Graphic Cabinet

This year the Bogdan Borčić’s graphic prints exhibition present works that he created in the 1960s, a period in which graphic prints bloomed in Slovenia as well as globally.

By the beginning of the 1960s Borčić was well acquainted with graphic prints as an artistic medium, which he found increasingly enticing due to its numerous possibilities. His graphic prints started to reflect the process and the economicalness of expression. This conceptual move was possible only under the influence of a concrete personal experience. The artist knew the Yugoslav coast since his childhood years, and he was especially well acquainted with the island of Vis and the town of Komiža, where his father was born and where he spent his holidays as a child. In the series presented in this exhibition we can notice that he let go of the narrative and focused on the exploitation of abstract forms. Borčić’s coastal motifs come to life as fragments of life and an enigmatic microcosmos only through the viewers experience, for they demand of the viewer to give them meaning in accordance to his imagination. Instead of the conventional vedutas and views of locations and people at the sea, as created by the old masters, or for instance Borčić’s professor Božidar Jakac – who at the time still emphasised the realistic motif in graphic prints – the detail is placed into the forefront.

Curator: Robert Simonišek