Duško Vujošević releasing a player for a shot
Joey Dorsey (Olympiacos – FC Barcelona Regal 68–64)
Elan Vital Series
photograph
74 cm x 90 cm (2 pcs)
2011–2014
The Elan Vital cycle of photographs is a series of visually solved basketball attacks on the courts in Belgrade, Zaječar, Čačak, Kraljevo, Požega, Herceg Novi (Montenegro), Trebinje (Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Wroclaw (Poland), Milan (Italy) and Madrid (Spain). In these interventions, each attack or action bears the name of the basketball legend who performed it, or of the place where the action was reconstructed or re-performed (LeBron James (Cavaliers vs Orlando game 2), NBG 2009, Jasikevicius (PAO vs CSKA 73 71), Duško Vujošević releasing a player for a shot, Joey Dorsey (Olympiacos – FC Barcelona Regal 68–64), Paths of Glory, Nemanja Bjelica (FC Barcelona – Fenerbahce Ulker)). This kind of intervention in space indicates the ways of shaping and presenting theoretical frameworks in basketball that a coach conveys to the players. The players transfer the coach’s ideas to the field, and Terzić transfers these ideas by means of graphic elements in order to visualize them. Through signs and symbols, the artist re-creates a certain moment that can be performed over and over again. In this sense, the graphic elements used to illustrate the sports action become a draft for choreography and space for re-performance.
In Predrag Terzić’ opus, there are three cycles that refer to basketball.
The first cycle National Service (started in 2005/2006), consists of portraits of players and coaches who brought changes in the concept of the game under the hoops. The development of the concept is shown in the second cycle, Elan Vital, where Terzić leaves figurative drawing and figurative presentation in general and enters the field of abstraction and performative action over which he has no control, except in setting up a “basis” that would serve as instructions for performing sports “choreography”/ action. The third cycle, Leistung (On Lightness and Weight), in a way rounds off the relationship between sport and art shown in the previous two cycles and focuses on the touch and the way of presenting the interactions of bodies in space through drawing and/or wall drawing. With his works, Terzić tries to encourage dialogue and examine the meaning of sport and its transposition into the public sphere of art.
© Cultural Centre of Belgrade, the October Salon Collection and the artist
Purchase Contract: III-5-377/16.11.2016.
Inventory No. 1458
Photograph: Courtesy the artist
Selected Bibliography:
55th October Salon, Disappearing Things. Cultural Centre of Belgrade, 2014
Predrag Terzić: Elan Vital, Apr. 19 – May 13, 2013, Contemporary Art Gallery Smederevo, catalogue for the solo exhibition, Smederevo, 2013
Predrag Terzić: ŽIVOTNI POLET//ELAN VITAL, Nov. 1–13, 2011, Youth Centre Gallery, Beograd, text for the exhibition by Anja Obradović, 2011
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Predrag Terzić (1972, Belgrade, Serbia) graduated (in 2000) and received his master’s degree from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, under Professor Čedomir Vasić. He received a PhD degree from the University of Arts in Belgrade – Interdisciplinary Studies. He has exhibited in the country and abroad; currently works as a professor at the Faculty of Media and Communications. His works are part of numerous public and private collections in the country and abroad. More information at www.predragterzic.com