Gathered in one place are all the various versions of characters/figures, subjects of the artist’s previous series. The characters emerge via three points of departure. First, they are the Frankenstein's monster or the cyborg, two archetypes in the genres of science fiction and horror – the body of the former is composed of organic material, the latter is a combination of the organic and mechanical. The second point of departure is the context of the early 1990s, a formative time for the artist, both personally and artistically. The third is the present, in which we’re forced to rethink many of our habits, once taken for granted.
Frankenstein’s creature and the cyborg surfaced in societies on the cusp of change. They embody the fear of dawning change. Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus (1818), a novel by Mary Shelley, heralds the Industrial Revolution. The female cyborg in Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis (1927) is a symbol of the modern age. Paul Verhoeven’s film RoboCop (1987) forewarns of newly-nascent digital control. Similarly, Bobičić employs these sci-fi archetypes to address the gradual infiltration of American culture into post-Yugoslav Slovenia of the 1990s, and finally its near-total absorption into Western monoculture, as we perceive the world today. Bobičić’s hybrid figures are made from components taken from artist’s early childhood. The artist borrows from 1980s American Saturday-morning cartoons, such as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), that arrived to Slovenian screens with a decade-long delay. There are references to attributes of American hip-hop culture, like Nike sneakers or baseball caps. Characters from blockbuster movies appear, velociraptors from Jurassic Park (1993), xenomorphs from Alien (1979). Then there are the clowns and the shoppers. The former as a metaphor for the façade of perpetual happiness we put on, particularly online. The latter, a symbol of consumerism gone wild.
Bobičić’s painting style is rooted in his childhood as well. Following an early period of his career, making use of a mostly abstract visual language with echoes of late modernism and neo-expressionist figuration – Jean Dubuffet, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francis Bacon were among influences –, in recent years we can observe a significant transformation in the artist’s approach. With a return to scenes from his youth, he is also reminded of his early creative endeavours as a child. It was then that he first began expressing himself visually by drawing cartoon characters off the television screen. This, along with his experience of working with children, made him once again appreciate the freedom and unrestraint of a child’s perspective. Today, Bobičić's paintings are imbued with childlike curiosity, the figures are flat, outlined with a prominent contour, the surface is composed of bright, often contrasting fields of colour. The characters give the impression of being enormous, regardless of the size of the canvas. This effect is achieved by expanding the figures right towards the edge of the canvas, so they appear to be pushing against it. Positioned firmly in a wide stance, Bobičić’s gigantic cyborgs and monsters are like modern-day Colossi, creatures of our time and for our time.
Jure Kirbis 2021
With his exhibition FUNNY HOW?, renowned artist of the younger generation, Matija Bobičić, is returning to his domestic art scene after several years of extensive and intensive exhibiting abroad. The pieces in his new series focus on monsters, mutants and other isolated creatures made up of multiple elements that offer a fresh and sharp perspective of our social reality. While the artist’s earlier works featured colourful abstraction permeated with an impulsiveness that spiralled out of control and was calmed by the artist through collaging, with the cutting of fragments and assembling them into new entities, his personal artistic self-reflection has completely changed in recent years, including the way he paints and the motifs he uses, opening a new chapter in his artistic career. Chaotic images blend into an increasingly harmonious composition, yet still leave room for spontaneity and unbridled imagination. In his creative process of constructing a piece, the artist adds and removes artistic elements, focusing on duplication and the line that often blurs it. In his childhood, the artist made toys out of various materials and parts, which he soon began to paint, and which he presently – although presented in somewhat different disguises – introduces to his painting canvases. These are even “recycled” and replicated, their presence shifting onto photographic film.
The FUNNY HOW? exhibition offers reflection and confrontation of the real and surreal, awkward disharmony and harmony, normality and strangeness, tragedy and comedy. The canvas-dwelling monsters, mutants, hybrids and other isolated creatures bring the artist back to a time of childhood play and experimentation, while the limbs of mutilated, wounded creatures in their stark poses create their very own chaotic world. They are associatively complemented by yellow skulls, plastic bags, Nike sneakers and Rio Mare cans, all of which, through recognized homeliness, touch on environmental issues and criticism of excessive consumption. In the blend of social reality and imagination, smiling clown faces also appear as embodied contradictions. Protagonists wearing modern sneakers and clown smiles point to the production of happiness through consumerism and ownership, while this obsessive attachment to things leads to their own enslavement. The clown mask, as a space where social illusions, utopian longings as well as personal hidden desires can be projected, is surrounded by elements that move between vibrant, flamboyant colours and dark, black surfaces that overlap with each other. As the artist does not dilute the shades he uses, his works get a specific texture, and this sub-image presents the painted elements with visibility and supports the entire composition. By doing so, the artist skilfully avoids the straightforwardness of speech and a condemning view, and despite his seemingly unburdened attitude to modernity, holds up a mirror and poses the question: Funny how?
Teja Kosi 2020