Past

Sketch for One Erasable Plot

03/22/2019 - 05/11/2019
1/45
Sketch for One Erasable Plot
installation view - Uncontained Images

Sketch for One Erasable Plot
installation view of drawing sequences for "Uncontained Images"

Sketch for One Erasable Plot
installation view sequence "Hands"

Sketch for One Erasable Plot
installation view "Double Noir"

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Double Noir - video, 2016
serie Double Noir
video HD, sound - 16/9
4'05
Edition of 6 ex + 2 AP, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Double Noir #1 (blackboard), 2016
série Double Noir
white chalk and pastel on painted wood board
120 x 77 cm
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
video installation (5 videos) - Uncontained Images, 2017-2018
serie Uncontained Images
animation video from drawings
edition of 3 complete series+ 3 single
Edition of 3 ex + 2 AP, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
video Gun single, 2017
serie Uncontained Images
video from Drawings
Edition of 3 ex + 2 AP, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
video Hands single, 2017
serie Uncontained Images
video from drawings
Edition of 3 ex + 2 AP, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
video Kiss single, 2017
serie Uncontained Images
video made of drawings, sound
loop
Edition of 3 ex + 2 AP, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
video Waves single, 2017
serie Uncontained Images
video made of drawings, sound
about 1' loop
Edition of 3 ex + 2 AP, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
video Train single, 2017/2018
serie Uncontained Images
video made of drawings, color, sound
1'20 loop
Edition of 3 ex + 2 AP, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Gun, 2017
serie Uncontained Images
ink on book pages
sequence of 84 drawings - 29,5 x 21,5 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Hands, 2017
serie Uncontained Images
ink on book pages
sequence of 95 drawings - 25,9 x 20 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #15 (Waves), 2017
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
204 drawings- 29,5 x 21,5 cm
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Kiss, 2017
serie Uncontained Images
ink and charcoal on book pages
sequence of 64 drawings - 41 x 28,5 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #9 (Train #1), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
25 drawings - 47,3x29,3 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Train #2, 2018
serie Uncontained Images
ink on book pages
18 drawings - 47,9 x 29,7 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #13 (Train #3), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
46 drawings - 47,3x29,3 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #11 (Train #4), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
41 drawings - 47,3x29,3 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #33 (Train #5), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
26 drawings - 47,3x27,5 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #56 (Train #6), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
30 drawings - 42x23,5 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #63 (Train #7), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
44 drawings -27,5x19,5 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Train #8, 2018
serie Uncontained Images
ink on book pages
40 drawings - 40,2x27,5 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #57 (Train #9), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
32 drawings - 27x19 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #60 (Train #10), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on map
30 drawings - 50x46 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #68 (Train #11), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on map
20 drawings - 50x46 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Train #12, 2018
serie Uncontained Images
ink on map
17 drawings - 50,3 x 46,3 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Train #13, 2018
serie Uncontained Images
ink on book pages
22 drawings - 27x19 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #41 (Train #14), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
50 drawings - 34.2x23.85 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #109 (Train #15), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
46 drawings - 34 x 23,8 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #121 (Train #16), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
40 drawings - 33x23,5 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #53 (Train #17), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
23 drawings - 27x19 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #35 (Train #18), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
58 drawings - 29x21 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #84 (Train #19), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
49 drawings - 29x21 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Train #20, 2018
serie Uncontained Images
charcoal on book pages
14 drawings - 32x23 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Train #21, 2018
serie Uncontained Images
charcoal on book pages
41 drawings - 32x23 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Train #22, 2018
serie Uncontained Images
charcoal on book pages
45 drawings - 32x23 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Train #23, 2018
serie Uncontained Images
ink on book pages
20 drawings - 27x19 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Train #24, 2018
serie Uncontained Images
charcoal on book pages
11 drawings - 31,2x22,8 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #137 #142 (Train #25), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
33 drawings - 40,2x27,5 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #133 (Train #26), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
10 drawings - 40,2x27,5 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #123 (Train #27), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
51 drawings - 40,2x27,5 cm each
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
The Plot Sequence #132 (Train #28), 2018
serie The Plot
ink on book pages
28 drawings 21x30cm
Unique artwork, available

Nemanja Nikolic
Nemanja Nikolic
Love Drawings #3, 2017
Série Love Drawings
charcoal on paper
5x (50 x 40cm)
Unique artwork, available

Press release

For his second solo show at Galerie Dix9 in Paris, Nemanja Nikolic presents his two latest video animations, made of drawings and using a substantially distinct technique derived from the same conceptual approach as moving images. The Serbian artist has tirelessly pursued this work since his masterful and highly acclaimed project Panic Book.

Trained in painting, Nemanja Nikolic excels in drawing and has earned many prizes. Since his early works, he has focused on exploring the expressive potential of classical drawing, and has rapidly developed his search for more complex patterns of the moving image, a conceptual approach that seems almost natural when one knows the artist?s fascination with the seventh art and the specificities of his artistic approach. He thus gave to the traditional expression of drawing a more complex visual dimension, linking the language of visual art and film. Animation quickly became his new form of visual expression, often referring to Hitchcock films, both for their form and their theme (like Panic Book). The artist particularly retains the gradual construction method (image by image), the tension and psychological uncertainty as a narrative structure.


A tribute to film noir, Double Noir (2016) is a video made of sixty sequences showing a man in pursuit of his own double. With its protagonist Humphrey Bogart, the scenes are inspired by nineteen films played by this iconic figure of film noir. Each sequence is made of white chalk drawings on a large blackboard, but only the last drawing of each sequence remains on the board. Thereby, the only memory of the 1800 drawings required for the animation is the video itself. Presented for the first time at the 56th October Salon in Belgrade, Double Noir figures in important collections including the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles.


Uncontained images (2018), is an installation composed of five videos, produced for the 57th October Salon in Belgrade. The sequences are made from drawings with ink and charcoal on book pages and maps. As with Panic Book, the books date from the Tito era and deal with the ideology of self-managing socialism. The questioning of the movement of the image is here focused on unique and short sequences (except the sequence of the train) whose images are inspired by different films made during the Cold War.
The Gun is inspired by a scene taken from the noir classic The Big Combo (1955), which shows a close-up of a hand pulling a pistol from a jacket. At the moment the gun turns, pointing to a fictional spectator, it goes back into the pocket. The sequence is drawn on book pages from Social Criticism by the famous ideologist Edward Kardelj.


The Train video has a more complex composition and montage. The 28 sequences feature the train in motion, shot from different angles, in different frames, with different camera positions. They are inspired by films such as From Russia With Love (1963), The Train (1964), The French Connection (1971), or Runaway Train (1985). They are drawn on book pages that are directly related to the biography of Tito and books that influenced the formation of his ideology, but also on some railroad maps of SFR Yugoslavia. A scene from Billion Dollar Brain (1967) shows a locomotive, with an effigy of Lenin on the front, that almost threateningly rushes forward. This was seen by the artist as an almost comic-like illustration of the socialist ideology: the train rushes, falls and passes the obstacles it encounters. Unlike previous videos with a linear structure (beginning, peak and the end), the narrative in Uncontained Images is hidden, the potential plot is left to the free interpretation of the viewer and arises from an interaction between the segments of the video installation itself.


Through his analysis of the movement of images and its temporal logic, Nemanja Nikolic questions, in these works, the nature of the narrative and symbolic potentials of the image of the film. Just as Double Noir seems to have an endless story, since the last scene joins the first scene, erasing while giving life to the plot, so the sequences of Uncontained Images come alive in an infinite loop and can interact with each other, giving the spectator free choice to draw a plot, as noted in the title of the exhibition: «A sketch for one erasable plot».