Rade Petrasevic: I wanna be the daughter of your parents

In pain­ting the ima­gi­ned in­te­ri­ors of a collec­tor?s li­ving en­vi­ron­ment, for many collec­tors keep se­cret which art­works they have ac­qui­red, for­cing the in­trigued like jour­na­lists, art dea­lers, fel­low collec­tors and other in­te­rested par­ties to spe­cu­la­te, Rade Pe­t­ra­se­vic too be­co­mes some kind of stal­ker.

Who is the right­ful ow­ner of a co­ve­ted art­work? The­re is a two­fold be­longing and the si­mul­ta­neous pull of the­se two cur­rents - one de­ter­mi­ned by eco­no­mic power, the other one by its ideo­lo­gi­cal va­lue to an ent­i­re ge­ne­ra­ti­on and sha­red in­te­rest - is play­ed out in the collec­tor?s ha­bi­tat. The com­mo­di­ty, de­vo­ted and re­le­vant to ever­yo­ne, though in­ac­ces­si­ble to most, be­co­mes fe­tish.

Rade Pe­t­ra­se­vic us­hers us into a very pe­cu­li­ar re­alm here: the se­rious collec­tor does not sim­ply ex­press his tas­te in choo­sing his in­te­ri­or and art­works. As his ha­ven is par­ti­al­ly pri­va­te, par­ti­al­ly pu­blic, the collec­tion is pro­vi­ding per­so­nal plea­su­re as well as in­ten­ded to be shown to a selec­ted au­di­ence. We might call it a Sa­lon.

Rade Pe­t­ra­se­vic?s pry­ing is the ex­act op­po­si­te of what Édouard Vuil­lar­d?s pain­tings were about: the do­mestic, very per­so­nal space of the back then new­ly es­ta­blis­hed do­mi­nant midd­le class, por­tray­ing one of its most im­portant in­no­va­tions – pri­va­cy. Vuil­lar­d?s sce­ne­ries are po­pu­la­ted, over­flo­wing with a fa­mi­li­a­ri­ty bet­ween the de­pic­ted and shown in the ty­pi­cal­ly bour­geois ar­ran­ge­ment that re­pul­sed Wal­ter Ben­ja­min so much. Rade Pe­t­ra­se­vic did not in­clu­de the ow­ner of the fic­ti­tious home, and how fit­ting, as the collec­tor?s dwel­ling is dis­tinct from its pos­ses­sor: it is big­ger than him, so to speak.

Cas­ting thin­ly spre­ad oil on can­vas, he ap­pears to have made the pain­tings with mar­ker pen ins­tead. Striking, cla­shing co­lours ap­p­lied with fran­tic brush strokes rein­force the fee­ling that one is stan­ding be­fo­re a vast drawing, en­gul­fing the be­hol­der im­me­dia­te­ly. The ma­gne­tic allu­re might have to do so­me­thing with ma­king us feel much smal­ler than we are, as drawings usual­ly come in a dif­fe­rent size. Com­pel­ling the eye to move in­ces­sant­ly bet­ween the deft­ly pla­ced bot­ches of co­lour ap­pearing see­mingly ran­dom all over the pain­ting and co­ver­ing dis­rup­tive­ly the al­re­a­dy fu­rious back­ground, the­se still lifes are any­thing but still.

Text: San­dra Pe­t­ra­se­vic