Vuk Vidor

Vuk Vidor (Veličković; Вук Видор, Величковић; born 1965) is a French-Serbian artist.

Vuk Vidor is the son of the painter, illustrator and engraver Vladimir Veličković and the older brother of artist Marko Velk.

Born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1965, he studied architecture at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts de Paris-Tolbiac (Paris-Tolbiac National School of Fine Arts) and graduated in 1990.

A series of drawing he started in 1989 and entitled " King Ink " often serves as the basis for his works.

Vidor's work is characterized by its eclecticism.

His reflexion about life and death is prominent in a series of paintings entitled " Ascendance " that depicts interconnected skulls.

It is a way to represent emotional, historical or even cosmic connexions between beings.

His works are full of irony.

The " Everlast " series is about the 4 ages of life : childhood, Adulthood, old age and death.

He works with several mediums, mostly painting and drawing, but sometimes sculpture or installation as well.

He shows several of his utopian and conceptual architectural projects alongside pioneers such as Zaha Hadid, Morphosis, Coop Himmelblau, Eric Moss... In 1992, Vuk Vidor decides to turn to painting.

" Vuillard was better than Bonnard, same for Tapiès, Rauschenberg used to be better, Twombly has always painted crap, Bacon was better when he was alive. ", he said in a 1999 manifesto-like work entitled " Art history ".

In 2000 he contributed to an exhibition about the color red, symbolizing eros, blood and violence.

In 2003 he takes side for the Refugees in an installation called Serbia Remix Project.

The subject of the installation is a blue, white, and red striped plastic bag.

This bag is according to him, a common feature of every victim of modern conflicts.

His work is fraught with historical references and frequently deals with the idea of war.

He has built a gold statue of himself in an attempt to reflect both on his ego as an artist.

and on Serbian nationalism.

In 2006, he directed a vido clip about greed for the launch of the Chrysler 300.

Vuk Vidor is a committed and political artist.

In 2007 he co-signed an editorial in the French newspaper L’Humanité, criticizing how the French Ministry for Culture was contributing to create a normalized and monopolistic " official art ".

He spoke against the " masked puppeteers " who are imposing diktats of fashion and trends in the art world.

In a 2009 series entitled " American Quartet ", he delivers his own vision of the United States.

Through figures of weary Superheroes, he denounces the myth of the Frontier and the omnipotence of the US.

Captain American becomes an Atlas-like figure, bearing on his shoulder not the world but the American Dream.

Jesus is also part of the exhibition, but is shown crucified to Shareholders.

The inspiration of his post 9/11 world comes from pop art and American comics – a genre he likes to parody.

He twists American symbols and turns heroes into useless villains.

He exhibits his works in the United States to force Americans to face their contradictions.

He intends to show that today " even super-heroes cannot save us ".

Generally speaking, his work constantly interrogates the place of humanity in the universe.

Vuk Vidor's vision of art is sometimes controversial.

In 2015, Vuk Vidor created an exhibition around a fictitious industrial and scientist, Thomas Jerome Newton, a character from the 1976 movie The Man Who Fell to Earth.

He built a story around the character, pretending that he was about to give an interview to Time Magazine.

He feigned to have had access to the character's archives and exhibited documents about him.

David Bowie, who impersonates Thomas Jerome Newton in the movie, is omnipresent in the exhibition.

Vuk Vidor had previously focused on another icon, the singer and musician Elvis Presley, whose name he had changed to ‘Evils’.

Vuk Vidor has worked with musicians Goran Bregović and Marc Cerrone, and English rock band Duran Duran.

He directed numerous music clips in Serbia in the 90s.