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ArtPremium Collection

ART MAGAZINE

ISSN: 1548-1468

COLLECTION

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2009 - US $ 5.95 ENGLISH EDITION

TV KIRO URDIN

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The most recent Kiro Urdin’s movie “Water & Fire” awarded twice at the New York International Festival of Independent Film and Video”

BY INVITATION

With Jean Pavlevski (left), président of the publishing house Economica Kiro and his family

With the famous musician and art collector Mick Fleetwood (Fleetwood Mac band) Studio in Knokke, Belgium - 2009

Baroness Danièle and Baron Luis Bacardi, Catherine Van Northen Gallery, Geneva.

Kiro with his brothers Constantin and Vasco.

Kiro Urdin in his studio in New York in 1993

Contents

4 INTERVIEW During the shooting for ArtPremium.TV, our Chief Editor, Corinne Timsit, met with Kiro Urdin in his studio in Knokke, Belgium.

8 BIOGRAPHY A rich career as painter, moviemaker, important worldwide exhibitions and prizewinner of International Independent Film Festival.

12 PLANETARIUM The first artwork in the History, a painting of 48m2, created traveling around the world: from Paris to Tokyo, Bangkok to Kenya, London to Machu Pichu and more.

20 PLANETARIUM MULTIMEDIA PROJECT Planetarium inspired the famous choreographer Debbie Wilson. A performance took place on the largest stages of the world, and during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the United Nations in Geneva.

24 COLLECTION Interview with Gerard H. Meulensteen, a tireless collector passionately engaged in the contemporary art. He developed a vast international art collection that led him to the construction of a museum in Bratislava (Slovakia) in the year 2000. Among his selection of world-renown artists, Kiro Urdin is at the forefront.

28 PORTFOLIO A selection of recent paintings exhibited at the show in Paris 38 BIBLIOGRAPHY 40 FILMOGRAPHIY

ArtPremium Urb. Torrimar 112 Reina Margarita Street San Juan, PR 00969-3275 USA +1 (305) 748-4891 FR +33 6 61 20 61 90 info@artpremium.com www.artpremium.com

Hilda Paliza Paul Walleyn Eric Bonici & Ana Maher Nathan Ferré Gerardo Ayala Mahmoud Omar

Editorial Assistant Photography Design - Layout Web design Circulation Video Filming

Texts: Gérard Xuriguera, Gérard H. Meulensteen,

Eric Bonici

C.E.O.

Corinne Timsit

Chief Editor

Jean-Louis Ferrier, Vlatko Galevski Copyright ArtPremium Inc., Kiro Urdin

VCP Graphicx

Printing

Special thanks to Jean-Luc Cholet for his precious help with video production.

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| EDITO |

MATIERES A SUIVRE...

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fter ArtPremium Magazine, ArtPremium Newspaper, and ArtPremium.TV, it was important to our group founded in the U.S. 7 years ago, to come up with its own selection of outstanding artists.

Corinne Timsit VP - Chief Editor ctimsit@artpremium.com

Our long experience in the art world contributed to publish ArtPremium Collection, a limited edition exclusively dedicated to an artist, with sections related to his work, his life and news. For our first publication in English and French, we have selected the artist Kiro Urdin who is a true effigy of passion and artistic commitment.

He traveled all over the planet with a canvas of 48m2, Planetarium, and accomplished the painting inspired by various cultures encounter along his journey from the most emblematic place to the most eccentric. The film Planetarium, witness of this epic adventure, inspired the choreographer Debbie Wilson to create a performance. The Planetarium Multimedia Project with her company OMO Dance performed on the largest stages of the world, and at the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the United Nations in Geneva.

He traveled all over the planet with a canvas of 48sq.m., Planetarium, and accomplished the painting inspired by various cultures encounter along his journey.

His international career is a long story. He won several prizes of the Independent International Film Festival in New York and Los Angeles. He was elected member of the Arts and Sciences Academy of Macedonia, his native country, and his cinematographic work was presented in various museums of the world including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Kiro has such a need of freedom that he desires constantly to get away from the painting magnetism and escape towards physically palpable regions, in order to touch them up with his camera and to dip his pictorial cosmic universe in the inaccessible lands of ethnos groups, and of the nature’s secrets, which our planet abounds.

His transcription from film to painting, and painting to film is a transcendence of the visual movement connected to the matter and color, to rewrite reality, to re-establish the reference symbols of our every day life, to propose them lacking in taboo and sectarian references.

The work of Kiro reached a gasp between the breakout of the painting and the testimony of the camera, which tirelessly questions himself on his intrinsic version of the Creation.

Life sits in his work light up by emotions creating chaos, which facilitates him to fit into the resonance of higher spheres.

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| INTERVIEW |

Interview with Kiro Urdin During the shooting for ArtPremium.TV, we met with Kiro Urdin at his studio in Knokke, Belgium. It was a time for enthusiastic thoughts.

by Corinne Timsit

Kiro Urdin: Please don’t ask me questions because there is no answer to a question. People do not know how to recognize the truth. As everyone lies, I lie more than others!

I forgot about all my friends and I cherished all my enemies because they are the only ones who stimulate me in my life and who strengthen my immunity which allows me to defend myself against my weaknesses.

ArtPremium: You had a period dedicated to filming and collaborating in multimedia projects.

The whole life is cinema. To survive it, you must always be into it. Thus, I constantly make cinema.

How important to your career was this period of your life?

No, there is no period. There are moments. Everything else doesn’t exist and we can erase it. The only thing that exists is the moment where significant things happen in an apotheosis of thoughts or emotions. The rest is a rain of lies and mediocrity.

You began with a subtle and delicate expression, and then you borrowed a more powerful expression.

Yes, it was an expression of love towards myself. Thus, I have worked naturally without end and I think that everything I did is with no importance. It leaves me a lot of space and time to try to achieve something.

You started to express yourself through watercolor.

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Yes, I started with the quickest technique.

Emotion is your vector of creation, and you are someone with a lot of strength and resistance.

No, others say that. I find myself flat.

Why? Is there any relationship with the matter?

No, it’s because I’m incapable to make a good work in my lifetime. One must want to do something, and then must be able to do it. Finally, it’s the people’s energy that makes the difference. Great artists are like unknown heroes who have given their lives for their countries and had no time to understand their deeds. When we express ourselves taking into consideration what is fashionable for an easy and fast success, thus we fool the people and us. The truth lies elsewhere. It is profoundly hidden in the emotions and in the unconsciousness of the artist; however, when he becomes aware of it, he is no longer an artist.

The definition of what is good is not art. On the other hand, what is true is art.

Is an artist like a primitive channel?

I will go even further. An artist is an abnormal being who is in osmosis with the energies of Creation. When he has a conscience inherited from a famous artist, he desires to follow his path and loses himself.

An artistic work is like a seed dispersed by the wind. It falls in a

| INTERVIEW |

I simply live and express myself because a world bothers me days and nights and creates a constant confusion in my mind.

Au coeur du volcan, oil on canvas, 82 x 80 cm, 2001

place where there is perhaps no sun, where the soil is perhaps not good or under a tree where perhaps other existing plants want to invade its territory. This seed has an energy for its survival in search of light. An artist must look for light in his heart, in his emotions, in his suffering to extract possibly a breath of creation.

We take into consideration the writings of critics to evaluate the work of an artist. However, big critics inspire the smallest critics and the big galleries better pay the biggest critics. All this confusion creates a universal lie. Instead of not disturbing the emotions of the artist to let express himself freely, we lead Art in a certain direction. We can of course judge the aesthetics, but who can really understand what the artist wanted to express. He doesn’t know himself.

It is well known that Frida Kahlo was not technically a good artist; however, she was a great artist, with plenty of truth, freedom, mystic, with a true search for her own fantasies through her sufferings that her life made her endure. Technique only allows assembling things.

You want to say that shape is not necessarily a tool of Creation.

The artwork can be unsuccessful, but it is enough that in an area of the canvas, the artist has expressed something immortal. It is stronger than a work extraordinarily done because it is inexplicable. We always want to explain what we cannot explain.

I consider that the greatest artist, writer or historian is the primitive man, who alone has found the colors and realized in his caves of remarkable works that chemically have resisted in surviving through the centuries. Currently, art is fast food. We no longer respect Byzantine or Renaissance paintings. The artists of this period were in love with Art. They did a lot of research before they dared to begin painting. Today, we do one brushstroke, we highly praise the artist, we make one gesture and we call it minimalist art. Then why don’t we sell their works for a minimal price?

We do not do enough research on the color, the canvas or the supports that we use. When we speak of art or when we make art, it should be an immortal act, for the next millennium. The works must survive with time. Art must not be temporary but must serve future generations.

And what do you think of new supports such as video or digital Art?

I have nothing against these new supports and new technologies.

On the other hand, I do not agree when we don’t try to go beyond ourselves. Art is a marriage between man and his spirit. The technique or the technology comes in second place.

We fall into the ease of the system to produce more and to try to earn more. Of course, we can be successful, to have more promotion, but we must suffer and question ourselves every day to be a great artist. We must have uncertainty and to look beyond the unfortunate.

Wealth and happiness are an obstacle for the energy of creation. We can visit a technically perfect exhibit, read a book, listen to music, see a theatrical work, then leaving 5 minutes later, we will have forgotten everything because the works were empty of energy.

Do you think that money and media are important factors to artist’s recognition?

No, it is not the shape that transmits, but the message of the realization.

No, time is the true judge. It is with time that we will discover the true artists. It is not those who are stars.

What can help us understand that we have perceived the message of the artwork?

How can we perceive the suffering of the artist? Is it in the color, the material, the shape or the subject?

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By the composition, the colors and all the attributes that constitute the atmosphere of the artwork.

Of course, great artists produce major artworks as well as works without any importance, except for great artists from the Renaissance such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Miguel Angelo and others who had an absolute need for giving and for creating, sublime and spiritual searches. They did not sign their works as long as the perfection of their expression and execution didn’t allow them to perceive the energy and the magic of time to take its place, as long as they did not feel the end of their spiritual powers, to go beyond themselves because the artist is always weak. A great spirit wants always to go beyond himself. Doubt is necessary for growth.

What fascinates me is the number of times Miguel Angelo destroyed his frescoes because he wasn’t satisfied.

These days, with a squirt of paint on a canvas we say “It’s amazing”.

We compose music, we say “It’s amazing”, we write a book and we say again “It’s amazing”. We live on a planet that is a paradise for geniuses. In our world there are no longer any normal people there are only geniuses.

Is the excuse of our time to say: All can be art because there is no definition of art?

Everything is art under the condition to preserve the unconsciousness regarding the possibilities for creativity.

When one becomes an artist, he becomes pervert. An artist is like a child who knows neither to talk nor to walk, who makes mechanical gestures. We are deformed by what we have learned. We should maintain our innocence.

Is the innocence the grandeur of the mankind?

Innocence is the path where the emotion is released. There is not a good or bad color. There is a wrong way to use the space. My most beautiful paintings, in the eventuality I have made one, would be those where I made a mistake. It’s a divine gift to make mistakes It is the most beautiful act of my artistic nightmare.

What would define the error?

It is random, the color, the paintbrush, the unexpected mixture.

Are you talking about a guided act?

Art is superior to magic. Art goes further. The magic of the resonance between the work and the viewer happens in function with his emotions and the ability of perception, from the information or the lack of information, from his sensitivity or his lack of sensitivity.

Kiro in his studio atelier in Tokyo; 2002

An artist is like a child who knows neither to talk nor to walk, who makes mechanical gestures. We are deformed by what we have learned. We should maintain our innocence.

Currently your work is greatly inspired by the invisible cosmic substance, by this existing world and inexistant to our eyes.

I cannot define what I do in painting or in cinema. I do not live in the illusion that someone understands me. But what must we understand? We feel, and we express our emotions. I simply live and express myself because a world bothers me days and nights and creates a constant confusion in my mind.

I can neither explain nor understand my world, neither explain myself nor understand myself. That is what makes life worthwhile, the suspense of life. We can’t define ourselves, but constantly challenge ourselves.

In conclusion, to a question, there is no answer there are only questions!

There is no questions and no responses.

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| BIOGRAPHY |

BIOGRAPHY

1945 1969 1971-73 1972 1974 1977 1982-83 1984 1984 1987 1995 1996 1997 1997 1995-97 1998-02 2003 2005

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Born in Strumica, Macedonia Obtains a degree at the Law Faculty of Belgrade University He works as a journalist Chiefset designer for telecasts “You with us too”, “Contact” both dealing with works of Beethoven, Verdi, Mozart, Chopin and Monteverdi.

Student at the “Academie des Arts Plastiques” in Paris Obtains a Degree of Cinema Director from the ”Academy of Cinema” in Paris.

Executes the portraits of participants in the renowned “Soirées Poetiques de Struga” series (Neruda, Montale, Orlov, Okai, Guivellic).

He starts to work as independent painter in differents countries : France, USA, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Mexico, Belgium, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Taiwan, Writes and publishes the book “Le dédoublement de la personnalité”.

Gains mention in the reference work”Le Dessin, le Pastel et l’Aquarelle of the contemporary arts”, published by Editions Mayer.

Represents France at the French Art Festival in Tapei.

Cover of the book of Jacques Delors “Combats pour l’Europe”.

Cover of the book of Anatoli Karpov “Mes plus belles victores”.

He represents the Republic of Macedonia in Thessaloniki – Culture Capital of Europe ’97.

He travels around the world and realizes Planetarium a multimedia project including painting, film, photos Writes 8 books of poetry and aphorisms in french and english Planetarium becomes a worldwide ballet performance created by the choreograher Debbie Wilson Member of the Arts & Science Academy of Macedonia

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But, in fact what captivates me is the outline underlining his face, tight the features, loose them, go and come, blue, orange, red, in a kind of a linear exuberance. A line emerge, a line surround, a line operates, a line thinks, reconsiders a face.

There is of Klee in the painting of Urdin. It means deepness and all as one of childish joy, of the graffiti but which are neither of sex nor of death, only expression of happiness.

The abstracted peak, in the years after the war, when already it had become the most needy of academicism, repeats the wording aged of art for art. It is even more near us with the free figuration, which is most often an empty shell. What I like, on the contrary, it is that the artist goes beyond his limits, as does Urdin. His paintings are spirit messengers. Art to be or art for the being. It is, I believe, what is perceived at the first sight in this artwork and which is in fact, at the same time, the main interest.

Jean-Louis Ferrier Art Critic

2007 2008 2009

Exhibition at the Science Academy of Skopje and Budapest Represents Macedonia at the Festival de la Francophonie de Moscou in Russia.

Invited by the City of Nuremberg, Germany, to exhibit at the National Gallery.

FILMOGRAPHY 1978 Pishta - Film 35 mm, 12 min, - OSMOSA Prod.

1994 I love you, Iban, - Film 16 mm, 25 min. – MKRTV Prod.

1998 L’art de Kiro Urdin - Film 16mm, 20 min, - MKRTV Prod.

PLANETARIUM

IN THE PRESS Paris Match Le Monde Le Figaro Le Monde Diplomatique Herald Tribune New York Times Aspen Daily News Makedonsko Sonce Dnevnik Eindhovens Dagblad Aftenposten Pravda Toronto Star Daily World Libre Belgique L’Hebdo, Lausanne The San Juan Star El Nuevo Dia L’Echo Bruxelles

Forum Artis, Modena Jet Society International Kulturen Zivot, Skopje Honolulu Star Bulletin Mainichi Shimbun Yomiuri Shimbun Asahi Shimbun China post China news Independence Evening Post, Taiwan Beau Arts Magazine L’oeil Amateur d’art Gazette de Genève Gazette Drouot Tribune des Arts El Mundo

1998 Planetarium - Film, 35 mm coul., 70 min. – MKRTV Production, 1998 Official Sélection – 38ème Festival de TV de Monte-Carlo.

1998 Projection at the Centre Georges Pompidou –Paris.

2002 Projection at Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico.

2003 Multimedia project, painting, photography, cinema, video, music, litterature and dance – OMO Dance Debbie Wilson Co., performance in Toronto, Heraclea, Ohrid, Skopje, Chicago, Geneva.

2005 Winner “Best Movie” - International Independent Film Festival of New York in Los Angeles.

2006 Projection at the Museum of Skopje.

DOGONA 2002 Film, 16 mm, coul., 26 min., MKRTV Prod.

Official selection - Festival de Lucerne 2005 - Rose d’Or 2003 Presentation at UNESCO, Paris.

2006 Train Dog – Film video H.D., 36 min, Osmoza Prod.

WATER & FIRE 2008 Film video H.D., 59 min, Osmoza Prod.

2008 Prize Winner - International Film Festival of Sarajevo, Bosnia 2009 Winner “Best Director” et “Best Cinematography” International Independent Film Festival of New York 2009 Official Selection - International Film Festival of Séoul

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| BIOGRAPHY |

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

1984 1986 1987 1987 1988 1988 1988 1988 1988 1989 1989 1989 1990 1990 1990

1986 1987 1988 1989 1989 1989 1990 1990 1991 1991 1992

1991 1992 1993 1993 1993 1993 1994 1994 1995 1995 1995 1996 1996 1996 1998 1998 1999 2000 2002 2003 2004 2005 2007 2009

Hotel Presidente, Acapulco Mexique Galerie Messara, Paris, France Mirror Studio, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA Paris Gallery, Yokohama, Japan (1993-1994) Printemps Gallery, Matsuyama, Japan Schloss Gallery, Tirol Austria I.A.C. Fine Art, La Jolia, CA, USA I.A.C. Fine Art, Beverly Hillws, Los Angeles, CA, USA Warner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA Catherine Van Notten, Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland Gummesons Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden Galerie Corinne Timsit, Paris, France ULTIM’s Art, Paris, France Robinsons Gallery, Knokke Belgium (1991,92,93,94,95) Corinne Timsit International Galleries, San Juan, Puerto Rico (1989 to 1994) Royal Ginza Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Flesser Gallery, Helsinborg, Sweden SCAG, Copenhagen, Denmark Galerie G., Helsingborg, Sweden Tamya Gallery, Fukuoka, Japan Gallery One, New York, USA Hirol Gallery, Matsuyama, Japan Muzej na sovremenata umetnost Skopje, Macedonia Museum Yuyu Yang, Tapei, Taiwan Asiaworld Plaza, Taipei, Taiwan Gallery Arthur Danziger, New York, USA Galerija Urania , Ohrid, Macedonia Intarta Gallery Knokke, Belgium (1997, 1998) Museum Miura, Japan Galerie Frank, Paris, France Galerie Kamil, Monte Carlo, Monaco Galerie Kamil, Aspen, Colorado, USA Museum Danubiana, Bratislava Galerie Guy Pieters, Saint-Paul de Vence, France Galerie Anouk Vilain, Belgium Galerie Forum-Kamil, Monaco Sciences Academy, Skopje, Macedonia Galerie Paris, Yokohama, Japan ArtPremium Collection presents Kiro Urdin at Galerie Frederic Moisan, Paris, France

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1993 1993 1993 1995 1995 1995 1995 1996 1996 1996 1996 1996 1997 1997 1999 1999 1999 2000 2000 2003 2003 2004

Espace Delpha, Art Contemprain, Paris, France Art Expo, New York, S.A.D. (1988, 1993) Art Junction International, Nice, France (1988) Place Vendome, Paris, France LineaAt, Gand, Belgium(1990, 1992. 1997) Museum of Modern Art, Liège; Belgium New Art Gallery, Saarbricken, Germany Art Fair Hambourg, Germany Tokyo Art Expo, Japan CLASSIC III, Belgium (1993, 1994, 1997) ArtMiami ’92, FL, Corinne Timsit International.

Galleries Europ’Art, Geneva, Switzerland, Corinne Timsit International Galleries NICAF, Yokohama, Japan (1994) Stockholm Art Fair, Sweden French Festival, Taipei, Taiwan Gallery Spadem Parvi, Paris, France Museum of Fine Art, Taipei, Taiwan NICAF, Tokyo, Japan Asia Art Center, Taipei, Taiwan Yayoyi Museum, Taipei, Taiwan NICAF, Tokyo, Japan Galerija Stobi, Skopje, Macedonia Fondacione Memmo, Roma, Italy Thessaloniki Cultural Capital of Europe, Greece Riverside Studios, London, England Capitolio, Havana, Cuba Bienale d’Art Present, Aras, France Fondación Epicur, Madrid, Spain Museum Jan Van Der Togt, Netherland Galerie Flag, Paris, France UNESCO, Paris, France DARC, Roma, Italy Museum and Gallery, Podgorica

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS : Fine Art Museum of Taipei National Gallery of Macedonia Contemporary Art Museum of Skopje Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, Bratislava, Slovakia

Cristal de Bolivia, oil on canvas, 110 x 160 cm, 2008

THE FIRST ARTWORK IN THE HISTORY CREATED AROUND THE WORLD

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planetarium WINNER BEST DOCUMENTARY New York International Independent Film & Video Festival Los Angeles 2005

P

lanetarium is the first artwork in the history to have been created around the world. It is composed of two panels of 24m2 each. Kiro Urdin devoted 20 months to his realization inspired by all cultures he met, ethnic groups and historical monuments he has discovered by traveling around the planet: Berlin’s Wall, Germany - Nerezi, Ohrid.

Macedonia - Brussels, Knokke, Brugge, Belgium Paris, Mont Saint-Michel, France – Roma, Pompei, Pisa, Italy - London, Stonehenge, Great Britain Athens, Cape Sounion - Greece, Tomb of Jesus and the Wailing Wall Jerusalem, Israel – Suez Canal, the Nile, Kheops Pyramid Egypt - the Masai-Mara tribe, Kenya - New York City, USA - Machu Pichu, Cuzco, Peru - Bangkok, Thailand - Beijing, The Forbidden City of Peking, the Wall of China, China - Tokyo, Kamakura, Japan - Nuenen and Eindhoven, Netherlands.

Planetarium is a multimedia project of various artistic expressions integrating the painting, cinema, photo, dance, music and video.

Painting: 1996 - 1997 Film : 1996 - 2004 Ballet : 2003 - 2005

PLANETARIUM - THE MOVIE 70 minutes Painting: Kiro Urdin Directors: Ivan Mitevski and Kiro Urdin Music : Venko and Vasko Serafimov Photography : Marin Dimeski

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planetarium

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inally, recently his insatiable curiosity and his exploring appetite have taken him to five continents, so as to paint, in each country visited, the same immense canvas: 48 sq. m., eight meters by six, split into two parts of 24 m2. Unrolled at each stop, sometimes placed on a stretcher, Kiro, overwhelmed by the prestigious nature of his environment, the millennial cultures and the unequalled riches of world heritage, has covered it as a symbol of his taking possession.

Drunk with the centuries-old fragrances, the companionship of people from every race, face to face to temples, and with landscapes from the four corners of the earth, he translated his circumstantial emotions. For two and a half year, dealing with problems, which would have been insurmountable for most of us, he filled his fresco with the spoils of his remembered images in situ, and with the breath of his sensitive thoughts.

From Skopje, cradle of all births, to the cannibals of Mindoro, from Kheops to the Pre-Columbian sites of Machu Pichu, from the Masais in Kenya to the Forbidden City of Peking, from Jerusalem, where, on hearing of the birth of his daughter Donna, he kissed the tomb of Christ and immolated, through fire, a large piece of the canvas, in New York, Tokyo and in the great European capitals, he placed his long, mystical, journeying under the banner of love and of the search of his limits.

This exhausting journey, with thousands of episodes and repeated perils, on the scale of his lack of measure, was undertaken by Kiro, obstinately, almost devotedly, his canvas on his back, in all weathers, and employing frequently unusual means of transport, aiming only for infinity in his quest and for the blossoming of his serenity. He has brought back a synthesis haloed by memory and affect, woven from unattained dreams, and fulfilled hopes, whose recipient, in other words the canvas, was endlessly reworked as a dream of knowledge and of freedom finally materialized.

A hymn to happiness, an act of love, this work entitled Planetarium, “one point everywhere, everything in one point”, and condensed in a remarkable short movie, nowadays belongs to the company Neways Electronics International, in Holland, and decorates its entrance lobby with its blue background, an allusion to the cosmos, on which play the trances of his forms and of his signs like a promise of universal joy. It was a unique experience “ a turning point in my life”, an adventure out of the norm”, says Kiro.

At this stage, no matter how far back the analysis proceeds; Kiro Urdin’s work is an affirmation of an authority without a decisive break. Of flesh and blood, it describes the man in filigree; solitude, melancholy, nostalgia, incommunicability, but whom only aspires to light and to peaceful world. And if it lingers in the unconscious of people and things, it has to do with contradictory fluxes in his sumptuous vital energy, at the service of a superior realty. After many turbulences, every exhibition adding a new step to his reputation, Kiro Urdin, like James Joyce, remains that tender and wild individualist, whose conquering the artwork, refractory to fashions and to labels, resonates deep inside us, long afterwards.

Gérard Xuriguera (from the book ‘Kiro Urdin‘ published by les Editions Vilo)

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“I AM A KLEPTOMANIAC OF COLOR, FASCINATED BY EVERYTHING THAT IS GENUINE, ORIGINAL AND EVERYTHING THAT EXCEEDS THE COMMERCIAL, WHICH IS DONE ONLY TO APPEAL”

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planetarium

The Nile - Egypt Massaï - Kenya Bangkok - Thailand Jerusalem - Israel Photos: Marin Dimeski - Š Kiro Urdin

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I DESIGNED MY PLANETARIUM WITH THE MOTTO “A POINT EVERYWHERE, EVERYTHING IN A POINT. AN ART IN ALL THE ARTS, ALL THE ARTS IN A SINGLE ONE”. THE ART IS EVERYWHERE. THERE ARE NO FRONTIERS THERE IS NO DEFINITION.

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planetarium

THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY THAT KIRO URDIN HAS MADE ALONG HISTORIC CULTURES HAS BEEN THE SOURCE OF INSPIRATION FOR A HIGHER LEVEL OF CREATIVENESS, WHICH RESULTED IN HIS MASTERPIECE PLANETARIUM. THROUGH ITS ARTISTIC VALUE, RICH PAL OF COLORS AND COMPOSITION, THE PIECE HAS A CLEARLY POSITIVE EMANATION. HERE LIES THE LINK WITH NEWAYS ELECTRONICS INTERNATIONAL, A GROUP OF COMPANIES ACTIVE IN THE FIELD OF MICROELECTRONIC. CONTINUALLY RENEWING ITSELF, SEARCHING FOR NEW WAYS, INNOVATIVE AND CREATIVE WITH A COMPANY CULTURE BASED ON A POSITIVE, OFFENSIVE AND FLEXIBLE ATTITUDE. THE BOND OF FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN THE PAINTER KIRO URDIN AND THE COMPANY NEWAYS HAS LARGELY CONTRIBUTED TO THIS SPLENDID FINAL RESULT. THE PLANETARIUM BY KIRO URDIN IN THE ATRIUM OF NEWAYS’ HEADQUARTERS SYMBOLIZES THIS PARTNERSHIP AND THE INNOVATIVE AND CREATIVE ASSETS OF OUR COMPANY. G.H.MEULENSTEEN

Machu Pichu - Peru London - Great Britain Stonhenge - Great Britain Pyramid of Kheops - Egypt Mont St-Michel - France Pompei- Italy

Photos: Marin Dimeski - © Kiro Urdin

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PLANETARIUM MULTIMEDIA PROJECT ArtPremium Collection | www.artpremium.com 21

planetarium At the discovery of the book Planetarium describing the epic journey of Kiro Urdin around the planet, Debbie Wilson has suddenly perceived that her own dream was finally taking shape: she will create a choreography, joining her company OMO Dance to the dancers of the Macedonian ballet, accompanied by the music of Serafimov and around an installation of Kiro Urdin.

“ KIRO HAD BEEN INSPIRED BY OTHER

CULTURES, WHICH LED ME TO ENVISION A DANCE PIECE INSPIRED BY THE THEMES OF MULTICULTURALISM AND HARMONY. I DON’T WANT TO DEFINE CULTURES, BUT RATHER TO SHOW THAT OUR DIFFERENT STYLES OF DANCE CAN MERGE TOGETHER INTO ONE HOMOGENOUS GROUP. ” DEBBIE WILSON THE GLOBE AND MAIL, TORONTO, FEBRUARY 2003

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Choreography : Debbie Wilson Set design : Kiro Urdin Music : Venko et Vasko Serafimov Photography : David Hou

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ebbie Wilson has been creating works as an independent producer in both Ontario and Quebec since 1990. In 1994, she embarked on a new path as founder and Artistic Director of the OMO Dance Co., for which she has created a growing repertoire of critically acclaimed works.

Omo Dance Company is a dynamic, multiracial company that engages and excites its audiences through Debbie Wilson’s critically acclaimed choreography, and through collaborations with outstanding composers, artists and designers. OMO’s wide appeal to both dance-related and popular audiences has garnered Debbie Wilson the “Best Local Choreographer” award in the Toronto-based NOW Magazine’s readers’ poll for 2000, 2001 and 2003. OMO has shown an impressive annual increase in audience attendance, and is one of Toronto’s most prolific companies.

The performance Planetarium Multimedia Project was presented to Toronto, Skopje, Heraclea, Ohrid, Ankara, Chicago, Geneva, and during the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the United Nations.

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| COLLECTION |

Kiro Urdin and Gérard H. Meulensteen, a long journey . . .

Gérard H. Meulensteen is a tireless collector passionately engaged in the contemporary art. He developed a vast international art collection that has led him to the construction of a museum in Bratislava in the year 2000. Among his selection of world-renown artists, Kiro Urdin is at the forefront. Gérard H. Meulensteen has developed a human and friendly relationship with Kiro that has turned out to be essential for the collector in understanding the artist’s work.

| COLLECTION |

“I met Kiro Urdin for the first time in Paris in his studio. We talked a lot about art. I showed him a work and he told me he could do the same with his feet.”

ArtPremium: How did your passion for art begin?

Gérard H. Meulensteen: When I was younger, I was always interested in art, but particularly classical art. 25 years ago, I started to buy modern art, and contemporary art, works by Karel Appel, Corneille, Ger Lataster and Walasse Ting.

How did the idea of constructing and opening a museum in Bratislava come about?

In the beginning I decided to collect works by artists I wanted to know personally. It was essential for me. This decision materialized when I met Kiro Urdin for the first time in Paris in his studio. We talked a lot about art. I showed him a work and he told me he could do the same with his feet. I had an unforgettable impression of Kiro and a few days later, I bought my first work by him entitled, “Moments of Craziness”. This work created a bond of friendship, and the act of buying did not limit itself only to the acquisition of a work but also to a human history. I then organized an exhibition of works by Kiro in Knokke, Belgium in 1990.

Later, a man came from Slovakia asked me to sponsor a project for a Pop Art museum in Slovakia. I accepted, captivated by his passion for art, and a year after, I visited Slovakia where I met a large number of artists and people passionate about art. The idea to create a museum to house my collection from Eindhoven defined itself more clearly.

Thus we decided to construct and install the collection in Bratislava, 26

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and we inaugurated the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum in September 2000.

Have you thought about an extension to your museum in the Netherlands?

Yes, for a short time, but no longer at present because the ownership of a private museum doesn’t only cost a lot of money, but also a lot of time, and I believe that one private museum is more than enough.

Also, the people in Slovakia are very motivated and the administrative rules are less stringent than those in my country.

How many works represent your permanent collection today?

We have a collection that regroups more than 75 artists with an important collection of Karel Appel, Sam Francis, Pierre Alechinsky, Christo, and Corneille representing more than 1000 works. In the near future, we are going to open an extension to the museum dedicated to Dutch, Slovak and international artists. Every 3 or 4 months, we organize temporary exhibitions in parallel with the exhibitions of our permanent collection, and currently, we are opening an important exhibition of Robert Combas until August 2009.

Can you comment on the adventure of the Planetarium?

I decided to construct another building for my company, for which the architect created an atrium where I foresaw space for an

important work. Thus, I proposed the work to Kiro who a month later, made an enormous proposal for a project involving trips around the world. It was easier for me to think of a Dutch artist, but when I later met Kiro at an exhibition in Macedonia, stimulated by a common passion, we decided that Kiro and I would undertake the adventure together. Two weeks later, he called me to inform me of the title of the work and the concept. We published a book about it and made a prize-winning film at the International Festival of Independent Film from New York in Los Angeles in 2005.

Gérard H. Meulensteen has passionately built up his collection and has developed his sense for art in parallel with the friendship he has sparked with the artists. He is part of the collectors of the last decades who have invested themselves without limit in their own work and passion, creating a temple for their collections, and who have involved themselves in the advancement of the career of artists they discovered. Little passions always strengthen with time, and so a snowball grows with nothing to stop them.

What do you think of Kiro’s work?

As Ricky, my wife, has said: it is very difficult for me to give an objective opinion on Kiro’s work because for me, he is one of the greatest artists I know. When I juxtapose one of his works with one of the greatest internationally recognized artists, his work fits in and imposes itself without any difficulty.

What are your projects with Kiro Urdin?

We have to meet in the coming weeks. My son Edwin lives in New York and for the opening of his gallery at the end of this year, he expects to exhibit Kiro’s works.

Photos - © Courtesy Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum

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| PORTFOLIO |

Blue Red Black, oil on canvas, 130 x 145 cm, 2009

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Anatema, oil on canvas, 110 x 150 cm, 2009

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| PORTFOLIO |

A la recherche du titre, oil on canvas, 100 x 150 cm, 2009

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Cuzco, oil on canvas, 120 x 150 cm, 2009

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| PORTFOLIO |

Souvenirs d’Afrique, oil on canvas, 140 x 120 cm, 2009

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Mon monde, oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm, 2009

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| PORTFOLIO |

Osmose, oil on canvas, 120 x 160 cm, 2009

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Rouge de Galicia, oil on canvas, 120 x 160 cm, 2009

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| PORTFOLIO |

Festival de Cannes, oil on canvas, 120 x 150 cm, 2009

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Animal flottant, oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm, 2009

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| BIBLIOGRAPHIE |

Kiro Urdin Retrospective 1985-2000 Danubiana Art Museum Ed.: Meulensteen Art Museum 2001 - 88 pages Préface: Gérard Xuriguera

Kiro Urdin Ed.Vilo, Paris 1999 - 210 pages Préface: Shinich Segi Text: Gérard Xurigura

Kiro Urdin - La puissance éruptive de la force et de la couleur Ed.: Liliane et Daniel Hanegreefs, Belgique 1992 - 220 pages Préface: Rémi de Cnodder

Planetarisms Aphorismes Ed.: Art International Publishers, Paris 2005 - 131 pages Text: Kiro Urdin

Planetarium Multimédia Project Dance Ed.: Art International Publishers, Paris 2003 - 95 pages

Kiro Urdin Ed.: Art International Publishers, Paris 1992 - 52 pages Préface Wim Toebosch

Selection of covers from publisher Economica illustrated by Kiro Urdin’s paintings

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Kiro Urdin Edition: Guy Pieters- Saint Paul de Vence- France 2002 - 160 pages Préface: Sonia Abadzieva

Kiro Urdin - Aquarelles Ed.: EFFA Paris 1988 - 146 pages Préface: Gérard Xuriguerra

Birth of a painting in a Kiro Urdin’s studio Ed.: Art International Publishers, Paris 1996 - 78 pages Préface: Boris Petrovski

Kiro Urdin Ed.: TMI-Connivence 1990 - 100 pages Text: Jean Louis Ferrier

Planetarium of Kiro Urdin Ed.: Gérard H. Meulensteen, Amsterdam 1997 - 184 pages Préface: Frans Boenders

Performance Planetarium Macedonia 60 years U.N. Ed.: Ministry of Culture of the Rebublic of Macedonia 2005 - 50 pages Préface: Emil Aleksiev

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| FILMOGRAPHY | B Y V L AT KO G A L E V S K I International film critic

PLANETARISM

A

s part of this year’s Skopje Summer Festival, four films by Kiro Urdin were shown in the Mala Stanica venue of the National Gallery of Macedonia by way of homage to this distinguished artist. The Skopje public had the opportunity of seeing his films Planetarium, Dogs and Trains, Dogona and Pishta. The painter and film director Kiro Urdin lived and worked in Paris from 1974. He is one of Macedonia’s bestestablished and best-selling painters, who in the past decade has also been engaged in filmmaking.

In the case of Kiro Urdin what we have is a different, indeed a rare artistic feat – or rather, the combining of two artistic feats into one: painting and film. Yet neither Kiro Urdin’s ideas nor his impulses end with the camera or his paintbrush. He goes much further, exploring and interpreting life, filming it and painting it in all its radiance and its spectrum of colors. In worldwide terms Urdin is to be numbered among the leading cosmopolitan artists, globetrotting documenters of the planet Earth.

It is in this sense that Dogs and Trains poses the question: What is it that is closest to art – that which cannot be understood or that which is impossible? This is how Urdin introduces the age-old topic of the link between art and life. He does not shy away from stating his own scruples about our modest capacities, our imperfections.

On the contrary, he counters them with dimensions of his own reality, spontaneity, spirituality, timelessness and infinity, categories experienced to a certain extent but not fully comprehended. A painter need not necessarily travel far to portray his daydreams and imaginings, the pictures already prepared in his mind, but Urdin as an artist wants to feel the concrete, bare, vital experience of traveling, of space, of

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authentic knowing, to draw upon the diversity of civilizations, to make contact with the essence of life . . . and of death.

And what can be more disturbing, more thrilling and more enlightening than the wisdom of the Dogon people: a celebration in honor of death?

And yet this idea was conceived long ago at a time when the young Urdin was wandering through Montmatre, when the clochards of Paris were to be numbered among his friends, when he filmed Pishta, a poor soul, an urchin dear to God but now grown old, whose act of self-immolation could not be interpreted otherwise than as a celebration of the birth of death, a revelation and a liberation. So it was that, twenty-seven years after shooting the first sequences of Pishta, Urdin brought us Pishta the clochard’s departure for paradise.

And Venko Serafimovski was to illustrate it discreetly with his own piano version of an ode to Bohemians, not in the style of Beethoven, but his own appropriate Ode to Street Innocents.

Two years later, when dogs and trains crossed paths, Urdin registered that magical and cyclical passage of fate: Illusion is a Mystery, Mystery is Reality, and Reality is Illusion. And the obvious truth that we are all thirsty for water, but also the well-known metaphor that only love thirsts for fire.

And it is precisely that love, as the rudder guiding Urdin throughout his creative quest, that succeeds in kindling the fire of the world, in revealing the radiance of Earth’s globe, a radiance visible only from other planets.

Urdin’s films awaken in us our dormant sentiments of and need for companionship among people, remind us of the almost forgotten tactile forms of communications.

Urdin is something quite rare among creative artists: an obstinate optimist, an incurable apologist for beauty, art and life.

Yet he is no ideologist of joy but a realist, an artist of flesh and blood whom this planet has taught to respect death, too, as much as he does life.

In this context it is only right and proper to mention those people without whom Urdin’s films might have been other than what they are: Ivan Mitevski – Coppola, as the director of Planetarium, the cinematographer Vladimir PetrovskiCarter and Venko Serafimovski, mentioned previously, the composer of the music/ sound track in the majority of Urdin’s films.

For Urdin humanity is his motive, art his tool and love his message. This is Kiro Urdin’s Planetarism, the building of civilisational bridges between cultures. In shooting Planetarium he assembles on the screen, his canvas, traces of the sky over Berlin, the marble of Sacré Coeur, the milk of the she-wolf of Rome, the ashes of Pompeii, the waters of the Ganges and the sands of Africa . . . all of these traces of this world on a single canvas, all thoughts in a single space . . . and the message is love.

The most recent Kiro Urdin’s movie “Water & Fire” awarded twice at the New York International Festival of Independent Film and Video”

BY INVITATION

With Jean Pavlevski (left), président of the publishing house Economica Kiro and his family

With the famous musician and art collector Mick Fleetwood (Fleetwood Mac band) Studio in Knokke, Belgium - 2009

Baroness Danièle and Baron Luis Bacardi, Catherine Van Northen Gallery, Geneva.

Kiro with his brothers Constantin and Vasco.

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