Famous Montenegrins – Part 1, Artists

Although small, Montenegro gave birth to many great names. Arts, sports, culture, science, are just some of the branches, where some Montenegrins positioned as the best among the best.

If you have in mind, that Montenegro has less than 700,000 inhabitants, it is certainly remarkable that we can count the world-famous personalities who are originally from Montenegro.

Today, we want to present you 2 GREAT artist. Let’s start with one famous lady:

Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic

A pioneer of performance art, Marina Abramović (born Yugoslavia, 1946) began using her own body as the subject, object, and medium of her work in the early 1970s. For the exhibition Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present, The Museum of Modern Art’s first performance retrospective, Abramović performed in the Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium every day the Museum was open between March 14 and May 31, 2010. Visitors were encouraged to sit silently across from the artist for a duration of their choosing, becoming participants in the artwork. This comprehensive photo gallery contains a record of each participant. Please select “Show info” to see the date and duration of each visitor’s participation.” The Artist Is Present is Abramovic’s longest performance to date.

Prizes and awards:

• Golden Lion Award, XLVII Venice Biennale, 1997
• Niedersächsischer Kunstpreis, 2003
• New York Dance and Performance Awards (The Bessies), 2003
• International Association of Art Critics, Best Show in a Commercial Gallery Award, 2003
• Honorary Doctor of Arts, University of Plymouth UK, 25 September 2009

More about Marina Abramovic: MoMA

Dado Djuric

Miodrag Dado Djuric

For sure, one of the biggest Montenegrin painters.

1933  Miodrag Djuric, known as Dado, is born on October 4 at Cetinje, Montenegro (Yugoslavia).

1944  Death of his mother. Taken in by his uncle, a painter, he lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia, a baroque city once in the Old Austro-Hungarian Empire.

1952  Dado studies at the School of Fine Art in Herceg Novi (Montenegro) before entering the School of Fine Art in Belgrade where he follows courses in painting by Marko Čelebonović, who encourages him in his work.

1956  First exhibition at the Salon in Rijeka (Croatia) together with French artists. Marko Čelebonović helps him leave for Paris on August 15. Shortly afterwards, Dado works in Gérard Patris litho workshop where he meets Jean Dubuffet and Roberto Matta.

1958  James Speyer buys a first painting from him. Kalinowski and Dubuffet arrange for him to meet Daniel Cordier who will become his dealer. First solo show at Daniel Cordier’s gallery. He leaves Paris for Courcelles-les-Gisors where devotes himself solely to painting and drawing. He meets Jacques Dauchez, Jean Dewasne, François de Liencourt and Bernard Réquichot whose close friend he becomes.

1960  Dado moves into an old mill at Hérouval, near Gisors. Réquichot visits regularly him at weekends.

1961  Dado is deeply affected by the death of Bernard Réquichot. This year also sees a new exhibit at Daniel Cordier’s gallery.

1962  Dado stays in New York for three months, there meeting Hessie, a Cuban painter whom he marries, becoming the adoptive father of her two children, Yasfaro and Domingo. Hans Bellmer and his partner Unica Zürn visit Hérouval.

1963  Dado becomes friends with Fahlström, one of the Cordier gallery’s other artists.

1964  Final show at the gallery of Daniel Cordier who shortly after announces its closure.

1965  Hans Bellmer comes to Hérouval with André-François Petit. They start to collaborate in 1970. Birth of Yanitza; Unica Zürn is her godmother.

1966  Dado does his first engraving at Georges Visat’s.

1967  Dado continues to make engravings with assistance from Alain Controu.

1968  First State purchase: a painting, Hérouval (1967) and a Large fresco (1966) enter the collections of the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain. The first lithographs, pulled in a few copies, as gifts to friends. Birth of Malcolm. Michel Leiris visits his studio. Roland Penrose buys a painting.

1970  Retrospective at the Centre National d’Art Contemporain in Paris, where Dado shows his car, a “front-wheel drive”, covered in painted bones. The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam purchases three paintings: The Great Vegetable Police (1969), Green Europe (1969) and The Male Nurse (1969). Purchase by the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain of one of the Great Beaches.

1971  The Swimming Pool enters the collection of the Boymans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam. Stays in Corsica on the holiday camp of Dr. Hoffman with the collectors M. and Mme Boulois. They introduce him to Jean-François Jaeger. Begins a collaboration with the Jeanne-Bucher Gallery that is to last five years.

1972  Dado devotes his time increasingly to engraving, encouraged by J.-F. Jaeger and still with advice from Alain Controu. Thirty-five plates are engraved, to be published by the Jeanne-Bucher Gallery. Proofs are deposited by the artist in the Print Department at the French National Library. Acquisition of two White Foodstuffs, by Robert Malaval, a friend. Birth of Amarante.

1974  Second retrospective – devoted exclusively to paintings – at the Boymans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam. The Way of the Cross (1973) enters the collection of the The Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University, near Boston. Dado follows a medical mission with J.-F. Jaeger’s brother, Dr. Georges Jaeger, to the Central African Republic, among the Pygmies. Starts a collaboration with the brothers Jim and Julian Aberbach, whose gallery is in New York.

1975  Lithographs printed by Pierre Badey and published by Piet Moget.

1976  Dado donates to the Pompidou Center Hérouval Diptych (1975-1976).

1977  Montjavoult Diptych (1976-1977) enters the collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. His growing interest for bibliophilic printing is shown by the first illustrations for the Book of Job.

1978  The Scaler Foundation gives an old work by the artist, Limbo or The Massacre of the Innocents (1958-1959), to the Pompidou Center. Until the 1980s, Dado will tend to concentrate on graphic art: drawing, engraving, collage.

1981  Exhibit of drawings and collages organized by Christian Derouet at the Department of Graphic Arts in the Pompidou Center. On request from the “Friends of the Museum”, Dado executes a diptych in drypoint.

1982  Dado works all year at the Lacourière-Frélaut studios in Paris, where he engraves thirteen copperplates resulting in a hundred or so states. A collaboration begins with the Galerie Beaubourg through the good offices of Dr. Katz.

1983  Grand Prix (for foreigners) for engraving at Varna (Bulgaria). The family travels to Varna, to Sofia, and on to Istanbul. Dado prepares for his first exhibition of paintings at the Galerie Beaubourg in Paris.

1984  The studio at Hérouval is once again teeming with pictures. A retrospective of his output since 1961 at the Musée Ingres in Montauban. Death of Henri Michaux a poet whom Dado respected enormously.

1985  A fascination for the invertebrate world and the discovery of the works of Buffon lead Dado to create a group of “aquatic” pictures under glass presented at the FIAC.

1986  Exhibition “Homage to Buffon” (Galerie Beaubourg). A retrospective of his engraved work is presented at the Artothèque, Toulouse. Discovers Asia on a journey to Thailand.

1987  Continues reading Buffon. Creates seventy-five painted armchairs; they invade the studio to saturation point. Dado also paints some large paintings: The Eagle Owl, The Bluejay, The Redpoll, The Forge of Buffon. Collaboration with writer Claude Louis-Combet on illustrating Vacuoles (Éditions Brandes).

1988  Dado becomes a friend of Pierre Bettencourt  – once a close friend of Michaux’s – who writes the text for the catalog of his exhibit in tribute to Buffon (“Taxidermied Buffon”) for the artist. This year also saw a major fire in the workshop at Hérouval. Hardly had the flames died down than Dado resumes his work, producing a series of polychrome sculptures composed of objects and homeware rendered unusable by the fire.

1989  A sizeable room is devoted to Dado at the show marking the Daniel Cordier donation to the Pompidou Center. Travels to Calcutta for the autumn; makes color drawings based on Indian anatomical illustrations.1990  First major exhibition of sculpture. Collaborates with Pierre Bettencourt, resulting in an artist’s book: Les Plus Belles Phrases de la langue française (published by Marianne and Pierre Nahon).

1991  Creation of a Dado “anti-museum” at Cetinje (Montenegro), the artist’s birthplace.

1992  New bibliophile piece, Le Don de langue with Claude Louis-Combet and Alain Controu. Begins to stay in the Aveyron, in a village house at Bez-de-Naussac, where Dado installs a studio, using old sheets as material for his pictures.

1993  Dado does sets for Handel’s opera Tamerlano at the Karlsruhe Opera.

1994  Dado takes over Les Orpellières, a disused wine-making concern located at Sérignan. The artist is to stay there regularly until

1999 – the date of the inauguration, – carrying out wall-paintings and sculpture-objects. Thus marks Dado’s “extra-studio” activities. Exhibits the work completed in the house at Bez in the Musée Denys-Puech, Rodez. Dado receives very fine letter from philosopher Gilles Deleuze.

1995  Pursues his collaboration with Pierre Bettencourt, spawning a new bibliophile publication, Les Négriers jaunes.

1996  Sets and costumes for Pierre Jourdan’s staging of Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías by Federico García Lorca performed in February at the recently reopened Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne. In the print works belonging to his sister Marija, Dado begins making digital collages based on gouaches by the dermatologist Dr. Jean-Louis Alibert.

1997  Show at the LAC, Sigean, and a retrospective in Arras. Travels to Guatemala.

1998  Dado completes Tikal, a canvas he then donates to the Pompidou Center. He makes pots and other ceramics then installed in the pharmacy belonging to Dr. Manuèle Dufour in Gisors.

1999  Dado starts to paint in the chapel of St. Luke (Gisors) in a former leper-house dating from the beginning of the 13th century.

2000  Sonia Criton (DRAC, Rouen) giving effective support to the artist’s work at the Chapel of St. Luke.

2001  Dado produces his first book illustrated with digital collages in collaboration with Alain Jouffroy, La situation est plus grave qu’on ne le croit.

2002  Following a profitable collaboration with founder Régis Bocquel, Dado takes over the blockhouse at Fécamp, built in about 1942 by the German Occupying forces. After decorated the walls, he then installs bronzes. Realization of The School of Prescillia, donated to the Pompidou Center in 2006. Exhibits at Alain Margaron’s gallery. This show, entitled “La Chapelle Saint-Luc,” presents works, collages, and paintings on wood realized by Dado in parallel to his work in the chapel of the same name.

2004  Produces a ceramic series The Eggs of Prehistory. Begins to collaborate with Matthieu Messagier on the publication of a bibliophile book Une clarté sessile by Fata Morgana, illustrated with six original lithographs.

2005  Publication by Léo Scheer of Notes du dehors, a Matthieu Messagier manuscript illuminated by Dado.

2006  Dado starts to paint Suite française. Produces the series The Birds of Irène from plates in an ornithological text and reproductions of the manuscript of the novel Suite française by Irène Némirovsky, preserved in the Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine (IMEC). Deposit of a large quantity of archives at IMEC.

2007  Purchase by the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain of Suite française (2006).

2008  Launch online, August 31, of Dado’s official website, “Dado Syndrome”, on the URLs http://www.dado.fr/ and http://www.dado.me/.

2009  Dado represents Montenegro at the 53rd Venice Biennial.

2010  In August, he receives the 13th July Award, the highest national distinction of Montenegro.

Nine big posters made from photos with highlights are especially realised by Dado to be exhibited at the Montenegro Pavilion during the World Expo 2010 in Shangai from September 15 to October 30, 2010.

Dado passed away on the 27th of November 2010 at Pontoise’s hospital.

More about Dado: Dado’s Virtual Anti Museum