“In his hands, even great art turns into kitsch” L. Giesz

Abstract

The case of Dimitrije Popović, after his great fifty-year retrospective in Zagreb’s Klovićevi Dvori, indicates the final trivialization of an opus that promised great manner and relevant content in its beginnings, when there was still no need for grotesque surrealization in a society of spectacle. In Dorfles’ words, Popović’s painting has eventually brought to the same level Salome and Severina, the body of Christ “shown in the symbol of sliced bread or a Madonna whose physical grace turns into a refined appearance of a photo model.” Dimitrije chooses the drama of existence and great subjects hoping that they will do the work themselves, that is, become great art by the mere fact that they have been borrowed from Dante or Leonardo. This is the kind of laziness of the spirit, the gemütlichkeit that produces, as A. Moles would say, the “comfort of the heart” by copying the language of the past, as if art were contagious and one must merely be near it or reach for it to partake in its greatness. But instead, the case is more probably that, as L. Giesz would say when describing a kitschmensch like Dimitrije, “in his hands, even great art turns into kitsch.”