It was the year 1972 and the seventeen-year-old Denis Berković wasshowing his work for the first time, at the International Meeting of Artistsin Vela Luka. If any of you had been there by any chance, you couldhave seen two abstract paintings on fiberboard and one relief. It was a hotsummer night and the smell of paint simply emanated from these works,filling the entire space. Much later, we would refer to these summers ascarefree times. This was how it all began. So, what has changed in the pastforty-eight years, what places has Berković been to, what has he seen andwhat has he painted? And, has any of those memories survived? We donot have answers to all those questions, but Berković’s exhibition I LoveBaroque offers us a glimpse into the matter that constitutes his world ofart. Even though he does not have an academic background, Berković hasexplored in his work different media and various styles: from sculpture,readymade and figuration to still life and abstraction. He has never stayedlong on one technique and one medium; instead, he has always aimed,with each and every exhibition, with each series of paintings and sculptures,to reinvent himself (in the words of Gorki Žuvela). As the result ofthis journey through colors and painting techniques, Berković’s canvasesshow resemblance to the old masters of the renaissance and the baroque,of German expressionism and Neu Wilde movement, but they also carrythe noes of Gerhard Richter’s restlessness and Robert Ryman’s whiteness.The nudes and abstracts shown in this exhibition are a living proof of anextraordinary artistic development, a depiction of a purified idea of theMediterranean and an image of human body entrapped in the paintingformat. Observing Berković’s paintings, perhaps we will ask ourselves thefundamental questions again – why do some paintings simply stay in ourmind and what is it about them that we cannot take our eyes off them? Is itthe extraordinary brush strokes, or an unusual tensity, or layers and layersof paint through which we walk, like in that hot summer night, whenthe smells of paint simply emanated from Berković’s first artworks? Inthe paintings shown here we see a soft dispersion of colors, smooth spotswhere hips join the torso, a white freshness and sparkling darkness of theMediterranean. And while we stand in front of them, mesmerized, we canfeel an invisible substance simply emanating from them. And we are notalone in this. We have nothing to add, nothing to take away. In Berković’spaintings there is no compromise. We have to love the baroque.


DENIS BERKOVIĆ was born in 1955 in Split, Croatia. He started painting in the1970s. He exhibited his first works in 1972, at the International Meeting of Artists.Berković has shown his works in numerous solo and group exhibitions. He is amember of the Croatian Association of Fine Artists Dubrovnik and the CroatianAssociation of Fine Artists Split. He lives and works in Vela Luka.