Curator
Denis Volk
Eternal Hunting Grounds
Wild animals and hunting have accompanied mankind since time immemorial. In different historical periods, hunting was not equally important for everyone, but it was of vital importance for man, a matter of survival even, especially in ancient times. It was a method of obtaining meat for nourishment and animal parts that our predecessors knew how to use in everyday life: animal skins for clothing and footwear, bones and teeth for tools, and some parts for decorative or even religious purposes. Hunting was so important that it was imprinted in the human subconscious and developed into an instinct. Instincts always cause an inner disturbance that manifests itself as a desire for fulfilment or as an internal conflict if for some reason it is left unfulfilled. People are often unaware of these kinds of conflicts, but artists perceive them and take advantage of their existence by expressing them through their artistic creations. Many artists tackle the subject of hunting and wild animals in this manner, as evidenced by the first cave drawings.
One such artist is Mito Gegič. Hunting is an integral part of his artistic expression. Gegič titled one of his major art cycles Fatherland (Očetnjava). His exhibitions where he presented works from this cycle carry the same title. It is more than apparent that he has had his fair share of dealing with this concept and its meanings and that these motifs are close to his heart.
Fatherland or the heritage of our forefathers includes the legacy in its entirety, both material – property, movable and immovable – as well as immaterial, i.e. everything that we inherit.
In a broader sense, part of this legacy is also family education, which we have all received and participated in. In addition to general life lessons, family education includes small location-specific and domestic specificities. Parents acquire knowledge and skills, develop certain interests, which they want to pass on to their children. For children who live in such an environment and where such interests of their ancestors are nurtured, these become part of their everyday life. These interests, which can occupy an individual in their free time as well as part of their professional vocation, can be a way of family life – for example, religion, nudism, dealing with pets, or leisure activities, such as gardening, mountaineering, recreation and sports, politics, interests in various genres of art, liker music, dance, film, theatre, literature and fine arts, as well as other fields of culture or anything similar. Individual family members or even the entire family perform these activities and nurture them, live with them. The reason why children encounter certain activities and interests is because their parents participate in them, too. With the help of their parents, children learn about the rules, peculiarities, and secrets of such activities, especially if they spark a little curiosity within them and if their parents try to arouse the children’s interest and involve them in these activities. Parents are often true enthusiasts, and this passion is frequently passed on to the children and later transferred to their (new) family.
One of these activities is hunting. From an early age, Mito Gegič was surrounded by hunters, the huntsman lifestyle, hunting activities and everything that comes along with it. His grandfather and many other relatives were hunters. Hunting is not just a leisure activity, but very quickly turns into a way of life. Certain obligations are imposed on the hunter and a good degree of devotion is required. Hunting changes one’s life, it even affects the choice of clothing colours (olive-green predominates), shoes (brown), house décor (a special cabinet for weapons and other special furniture), cuisine (venison dishes), the hunter hangs his legally obtained animal trophies: stuffed animals, animal parts or animal skulls with horns. Hunting dogs often become house pets. A hunter’s child is exposed to this environment and way of thinking from an early age, and with the right incentives, accepts it as his own, so that he wants to become a hunter when he grows up. However, many people change their attitude towards hunting when they reach adulthood.
Mito Gegič grew up in a similar environment. He learned all about hunting within the family, but decided not to pursue a career in hunting, and thus did not continue the family tradition. He respects it, he accepts it to some extent, but he does not fully agree with hunting and what it entails. He became a painter, and hunting became an important theme of his artistic creations. He delves into the topic and various aspects of hunting and searches for parallels in other areas of human activity and in society at large.
Painter and multimedia artist Mito Gegič has developed a special painting technique, which has become his specialty. He covers a clean canvas with strips of self-adhesive tape. He searches for and finds a suitable hunting motif on the Internet, which he then paints as realistically as possible on the glued surface. He prepares a second canvas and transfers the individual strips from the first canvas to the new one, reconstructing and composing a new image in the process. In doing so, he is not precise and deliberately creates defects in the spaces between the strips. The painted strips are shifted in places or even torn and crumpled or missing. The final product is finalised by means of fixation. It is still possible to recognise the original motif that the artist found online in the newly created image.
Gegič’s motifs are observed several times over. First, the author of the photos, who takes them in nature and publishes them online, then comes Mito Gegič, who finds them and chooses the right ones from a multitude of online photos and decides which motifs he will appropriate and recreate on the canvas. When the artist reconstructs and assembles the image on a new canvas, he again observes this image and finally captures it once it is assembled into a new painting. Finally, the image is observed in the gallery, when the viewer looks around like a hunter surrounded by the exhibited paintings and identifies individual elements.
When painting, Gegič unwittingly imitates hunters and the rituals they perform. From preparing to hunt, hunting for the right photo online, to trying to capture a new image by painting on a pasted canvas, and all the way to capturing the prey, or in other words: to the completion of the piece that he can exhibit. The latter becomes his trophy.
The similarity of Gegič’s creative process is also offered by digital technology. The artist selects an intangible image from the Internet, on which the real world is recorded, and materialises it on a pasted canvas in the form of a new, perfectly transferred image. The individual painted strips carry information about the fragments of the image, which the artist first divides and fragments, so that he can then reconstruct them again on a new canvas, defragment them in this way and assemble them into a new image, which is not ideal due to defects and missing strips, but it is at the same time complete enough for the original motif to be recognised. Even in digital technology, sometimes files can get corrupted or lost, but at the end of the day, the whole program still works, however flawed it may be.
Despite the rationally controlled process of creating each new painting, it is difficult to avoid the emotional component of the entire process. The selection of online images is based on ideal or provocative motifs from the world of hunting and wild animals. Gegič highlights these motifs by painting them. We can therefore already sense the message he wants to convey. Deconstructing an ideal image and creating a new, imperfect one certainly carries the idea of rebellion, disagreement and open criticism of what is depicted. The fact that his creative process is connected to digital technologies is also indicated by the titling of his works.
Years ago, Gegič upgraded his paintings, expanding the expressive surface of the canvas into space, first by exhibiting antlers next to the paintings and later by adding new visual works, objects, and installations to his creative oeuvre. In these objects, he uses ready-mades, i.e. hunting trophies – mainly skulls with antlers – and various tools and technical devices, as well as objet trouvé – parts that have fallen from animal bodies (such as horns) – and other objects or animal parts. With these objects, the artist reinforces the message he already conveys with the images. In his artistic expression, he also uses performance, photography, mostly as a documentation of the performance, as well as video.
The choice of hunting motifs in the paintings portrays respect for his family and the hunting tradition, which he does not want to be a part of. He opposes the unnecessary killing of animals, which he shows by painting wounded, slaughtered and dead animals, thereby drawing attention to the lack of a pious attitude towards animals. His paintings can be a medium for questioning our own relationship to the killed animals and to killing in general, to family, local and national traditions, including hunting, and finally, to reflect on our relationship to the environment and to death.
The content of works of other – non-painting – art genres is somewhat distant from the criticism of hunting, the hunting tradition and the killing of animals and increasingly refers to modern times. It highlights moral and ethical aspects. Even though the artist almost always uses parts of dead animals and horns, his works are increasingly socially critical, often interfering with interpersonal, interhuman and social relationships. They are characterised by a critical view of contemporary social events, of the crisis and hardships that this brings both to the individual and to a wider society, to the personal characteristics of individuals and the relationships between various segments of the population, to growing egoism, intolerance, lack of compassion... that can affect an individual and creates personal distress.
Gegič’s message is even easier to understand if we imagine replacing the animals depicted in the images or used in objects and other works with humans. Whether it is a cadaver, parts of a cadaver, bones, or if we replace a lookout built by man to observe animals by something for monitoring people.
