The six decades of work of the Museum of Naïve and Marginal Art have been marked by a continuous re-examination of existing approaches to the perception, interpretation, and professional protection of authentic values in the field of unconventional art. In the perception of self-taught, naïve, marginal art, as well as other related independent creative expressions, the search was made for fundamental sources of autochthonous creative energy, which underlined a basic distance from the production of pseudo naïve commercialism, amateurism, and dilettantism. Knowledge has been consistently expanded by the relevance of the fact that this artistic field is not hermetic, static, and limited by a closed circle of repetitions, but pulsates with a combination of different sensibilities and distinct individualities, not mutually exclusive in their complexity. In an open dialogue of touching, overlapping, permeating, and refracting, these complex fluid levels escape classification within the limits of existing terminological determinants, posing to the institutions of museological protection the challenge of actualization, thus redefining existing attitudes and their contextualization.

 

One of the relevant frameworks for research aimed to the leading movements and discovery of the guidelines of new courses of dynamic progress in artistic practices, arising beyond the dominant scene of contemporary art is found in the international event, the MNMA Triennial, which the Museum of Naïve and Marginal Art organises, thus following the tradition of more than half a century. Confirming the continuity of the development of the form of periodic art reviews of the realisation of an individual artistic expression, in accordance with the insight into the most significant movements in the given field on a wider international level, the concept of this event was actively revised. After ten Salons (1970-1979) as, an annual review of the most valuable achievements of self-taught art, first Serbian and ·then Yugoslav, sixteen Biennials (1981-2013) followed, which developed from Yugoslav to international. Starting from naïve art, the perception of the Biennial extended over time to the field of marginal art. In the recent period, since 2016, in the form of the Triennial, the mission of recognising and affirming artistic phenomena that arise on the margins of the official art scene and expansion of their scope of research and interpretation has continued. The name of the Art Triennial of Self-Taught Visionaries, which marked the first two triennial gatherings, symbolically rounded off the developmental path of this event, which for decades gathered self-taught creators and authors with own artistic instinct and raw vision.

 

Indications of the concept of further development of the MNMA International Triennial are contained in the name under which it is organized this year - RAW INTUITIVE. A significant step forward, compared to the previous Triennials, is the openness of the competition to all authentic creators regardless of their art education, seems like a logical continuation of the tendency to expand the scope of thinking about this event and its availability to the widest possible international circle of artists. The contemporary moment primarily emphasizes the importance of openness, constant listening and monitoring of vital creative courses that problematize existing criteria and reveal the guidelines of new trends in the dynamic development of this specific part of contemporary art. With the necessary caution when pronouncing final judgments, one of the questions that naturally arises is the justification of observing the art education as a limiting and disqualifying factor in this artistic field of intuitive cognition, experience, and instinctive reflex. We could search for an answer in the light of the fact that finding and preserving the purity of the identity of the instinctive artistic language in the time of mass production, developed communications and an abundance of easily accessible information is not easy to achieve. It is almost impossible to imagine and achieve complete artistic isolation and resist influences, consciously accepted, or subconsciously adopted, in a reality where every piece of information is only a split second away from loading on the screen. It seems that the dimension of singularity, nevertheless exists at the level of the artist's unquestionable instinctive choice to remain faithful to the irresistible impulse to directly express himself creatively in an original way, whereby the repository of accumulated observations is only a potential material on which the artist's instinct can rely at the moment of creative revelation. In the light of these facts, the presence of art education loses the legitimacy of the attributed character as an eliminatory determinant in the given framework. The same tendency to erase borders is noticed as one of the increasingly progressive within the contemporary art scene at the most important world events of modern art, such as Venice Biennial and Documenta in Kassel. The shift in the conceptual position of the event led to the change of its name. Toe title of this year's Triennial RA W INTUITIVE was born in search for the conceptual range that covers indigenous creative expressions, moving from the subtler, more fluid contours of the intuitive, to the much more clearly delineated immediacy of the potential of raw artistic expression. Searching for the best achievements in this range, the Jury of this year's Triennial had the demanding task of creating an exhibition kaleidoscope of intensity and delicacy with a wide amplitude of emotional and creative charge of different artistic affinities.

In an effort to ensure as objective criteria as possible, the Jury of the Triennial included distinguished experts who could see the phenomenon of artistic outsiders from different positions and, with their fresh perspective, shed light on certain phenomena in the given framework. The key contribution to this year's evaluation of works was made by outstanding experts, who approached the submitted material from the point of view of excellent connoisseurs of this field - respected world authorities in the field of Outsider Art, Thomas Röske, PhD, director of the Prinzhorn Collection Museum (Museum Sammlung Prinzhorn) from Heidelberg and Marina Giordano, vice president of the association Osservatorio Outsider Art from Palermo. Equally, with their rich experience in the field of the contemporary art scene, our distinguished art historians, Biljana Tomić, a witness and participant in the heroic era of the birth of new phenomena on the contemporary art scene from the nineteen-sixties and Miroslav Karić, one of the leading curators at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade also contributed to the work of the Jury.

 

From a total of 396 works by 97 authors from 18 countries, which were submitted to the competition of the Third MNMA RAW INTUITIVE Triennial, the Jury selected for the exhibition 129 works by 53 artists from 16 countries (Bulgaria, Denmark, India, Iran, Japan, Cuba, Germany, Rwanda, Russia, USA, Slovenia, Serbia, Uganda, United Kingdom, France, Chile). In addition to a large number of notable artistic creations by authors who have already become known at the exhibitions organized by the Museum of Naïve and Marginal Art, a large group of domestic and foreign authors who applied for the Triennial for the first time stood out. The range of heterogeneous works submitted to the competition ranged from small formats of 10 cm, to works that reach a length of 3 meters, from pencil drawings on paper to digital works. The range, variety and high quality of the competition material inspired the members of the Jury to dynamic constructive considerations of various aspects of the observed domain, or the specific features of individual works and artistic expressions, which led to the crystallization of a homogeneous group of authors as candidates for Triennial awards. Margaret Musso (USA), Merdad Rashidi (Iran/Germany), as well as local authors Goran Stojcetovié and Zil Milano stood out in the group of authors whose works were particularly noted by the Jury.

 

The Grand Prix for the exhibited works and the opportunity to have a solo exhibition next year at exhibiting area of MNMA Gallery was awarded to French artist Margo. The outstanding intensity of drawing quality, fundamental for her work, reflects the artist's unreserved devotion to drawing as a way of the most concise and direct transmission of creative instinct and vision. Fascinated with the world of lush vegetation, the artist started to create luxurious, harmonious, symmetrical compositions of large formats, which acquire the power of accumulated energy of an unexpected abundance of structural sensations of a dense network of drawings. The artist develops elements of floral and organic forms that grow out of each other, thus revealing new forms and symbols. With an emotional artistic handwriting the artist reshapes and translates them into sensuous intimate notes.

 

The idea of openness and flexibility of form at the MNMA Triennial has opened the doors of the competition not only to individual artists, but also to related institutions, colleagues and collectors who deal with the creativity of art outsiders. This possibility proved to be valuable since many of these marginal artists who, as distinct individualists, often live in a kind of living and creative isolation, have no need to show their creativity, and are not aware of the importance of participating in art shows like the Triennial. We owe special thanks for the cooperation to a number of institutions and colleagues, who are looking for authentic creators-outsiders: Riera Studio - Art Brut Project Cuba (Havana, Cuba), Gondwana Art Project (New Delhi, India), Vladimir Gavrilov (Inye Collection, Yaroslavl, Russia), Alexandra Migunova-Tikhanuyk ( Centre for the Outsider Art, Kaliningrad, Russia), Jennifer Gilbert (Jennifer Lauren Gallery, Manchester, United Kingdom). Like at the previous competition of the Triennial, a significant presence of authors from Cuba was noted this year as well. Among the six Cuban authors, whose works were selected for exhibition at the Third MNMA Triennial, is the winner of this year's Purchase Award - Marcos Antonio Guerrero Herrera. The works of this artist as a valuable acquisition will complete the significant fund of the rich international collection of the Museum of Naïve and Marginal Art. Simultaneously intense and refined, the coloristic saturation of the wide surface of the entire larger-format composition speaks of the sure instinctive feeling of the author to achieve artistic intensity that does not disturb the absolute harmony of the whole. The dynamics achieved by the rhythmic movement of multiplied strokes of lines by which the artist shapes his imaginary worlds of suggestive fantasy, releases a strong impression of the presence of dimensions that go beyond the visual experience.

Art that exists on the margins, on the other side of the artistic reality of the contemporary moment, unrestricted by the thematic, technical, and stylistic commitment and orientation of the author, conveys spontaneity, purity and intensity of the experience. In an intuitive or impulsive creative process, which often reaches the limit of existential imperative, these creators of new artistic visions establish through their works a two-way channel of communication, with themselves and with the outside world, unaware of their potential belonging to a certain art category. The MNMA RAW INTUITIVE Triennial exhibition leaves the impression of a striking creative mosaic of different artistic sensibilities, presenting one of the possible dynamic intersections, informative as much as the available competition material allowed, thus providing truest possible picture of current movements in the field of unconventional contemporary art practice at a wider international level.

 

Ivana Jovanović, art historian, museum advisor MNMA