Grafenauer and Borcic Conferred Preseren Awards
Flautist Irena Grafenauer and painter Bogdan Borcic received the Preseren Awards, the highest national awards for outstanding achievement in arts and culture, at a ceremony held Monday on the eve of Culture Day. Grafenauer used the opportunity to voice an appeal for greater artistic freedom and the encouragement of young talents.
She refused to deliver her announced address in which she outlined her difficult and obstacle-lined artistic path, saying that she is "an independent person". "My memory of those days is more painful even than my disease," said Grafenauer, who is suffering from advanced incurable leukemia.
The world acclaimed artist said that people should show more understanding and be more open to talented artists, to nurture them instead of suppressing them. "The path of the true artist is hard and rocky ... The artist needs power for development, to overcome creative crises and for life. It was very painful for me to experience how underestimated and non-respected our artists are here, and how glorified and overpaid foreign ones are," she said.
Bogdan Borcic, meanwhile, stressed the solitude of the artistic process, "my fate every single painting day", when "I opt for solitude in front of an empty canvass, in front of the whiteness, with the primordial fear that I will consecrate this pureness with my intervention".
"I always break the spell by destroying the virginity and painting the white over with a neutral colour. The blockade is thus removed and the darker base enables me to put on the first layers of paint. Now the picture and I are personal and a conversation of two eremite begins," Borcic outlines the artistic process.
The Preseren Fund Awards for extraordinary achievements were also conferred. They went to architects Matija Bevk and Vaso Perovic for their work between 2002 and 2004; dancer and choreographer Edward Clug for the project "Lacrimas - Tears"; and Mirjam Kalin for her interpretations of works by Uros Krek, Ivo Peric, Alojz Srebotnjak and Samo Vremsak.
Composer Milko Lazar was awarded for his composition Triple Concerto for piano, symphony orchestra and big band; actor Natasa Matjasec for her co-authorship and performance in "Get Famous or Die Trying. Elizabeth 2", and poet Milan Vincetic for his collection "Lacmus".
Last year only one Preseren Award was given out. It went to Florjan Lipus, one of the finest authors of Slovenian fiction. A member of the ethnic minority in Austria, Lipus writes about the modern reality of the minority through a bitter personal experience and in an unconventional manner.
The Preseren Award does not imply only prestige, but also brings financial reward as each laureate received 4.3 million tolars or EUR 17,900. The winners of the Preseren Fund Awards each got 1.43 million tolars (EUR 5,900).
More articles from this issue:
Archive
|