Kunsthalle Düsseldorf

DADO
Danse Macabre
21 April – 24 June 2012

Da­do (Miodrag Dju­ric, 1933-2010) was born in Mon­te­ne­gro and went to Pa­ris in 1956. He found sup­port the­re for his work as an ar­tist from Jean Du­buf­fet, Ber­nard Réquichot and Horst Ka­li­now­ski and was men­to­red by the art dea­ler Da­ni­el Cor­dier, who­se gal­le­ry was the
si­te of his first so­lo ex­hi­bi­ti­on in 1958. From 1960 he li­ved and wor­ked in an old mill in Nor­man­dy, whe­re his pro­du­ced pain­tings, drawings and prints – sur­rea­lis­tic ima­ges, bru­tal and exis­ten­ti­al de­pic­tions of a fan­tas­tic hor­ror. Da­do, who was fri­ends wi­th Hans Bell­mer and Uni­ca Zürn sin­ce 1962, de­scri­bed him­s­elf as a “phi­lo­so­pher of ever­y­thing twis­ted.” His ob­ses­si­ve, of­ten night­ma­rish pic­tu­res
ha­ve clo­se ties to and are roo­ted in Sur­rea­lism. They ha­ve a de­ep me­lan­ch­oly that is in­herent to all li­ving crea­tu­res and are si­mul­ta­neous­ly ex­pres­si­ons of un­com­pro­mi­sing hu­ma­ni­ty. Da­do’s pic­tu­res de­pic­ting the bust­le of hu­man mi­se­ry are in­ha­b­i­ted by nu­me­rous bo­is­te­rous and gro­tes­que mons­ters and pe­cu­li­ar crea­tu­res. The peop­le are de­ge­ne­ra­ted, swol­len and miss­ha­pen, bloated and ha­cked to pie­ces. The fle­s­hy struc­tu­re has be­en dis­sol­ved; the ink strokes sug­gest a trans­pa­ren­cy, in the opaque ab­sur­di­ty of which hor­rors ha­ve es­ta­blis­hed them­sel­ves and ap­pe­ar mal­le­able at the sa­me ti­me. The forms melt, of­ten cha­rac­te­ri­sing a ca­ta­stro­phic sta­te of emo­tio­nal dis­mem­ber­ment and hor­ri­fy­ing phy­si­cal decay. At a ti­me do­mi­na­ted by Ab­stract Ex­pres­sio­nism, Da­do be­ca­me an im­portant mo­del for such ex­po­n­ents of a new fi­gu­ra­ti­on in art as Eu­gen Schö­ne­beck and Ge­org Ba­se­litz. The Kunst­hal­le is ex­hi­bit­ing a selec­tion of his ear­ly drawings da­ting from the 1960s.