A Refunctionalisation of Form. The Modernist Turn in the Opus of Painter Leonid Šejka

Works by Belgrade artist Leonid Šejka (1932–1970) are usually considered fantastic, an embodiment of aesthetic ideals of Mediala Art Group he was a member of, an opposition to everything that Modernism stood for with its harsh formalism that expelled object. However, the complexity of Šejka’s opus as artist and theorist allows a different approach. In this paper, we turn to – so far neglected – Šejka‘s positive relation to Modernism, which he saw as a foundation for new aesthetic ideals. He understood that Modernism turned paintings into objects of empty forms void of function. Nevertheless, the future of painting, for him, resided in re-introduction of objects into painting in order to re-establish the necessary form-function relation, preserving, at the same time, Modernist traits. Šejka tried to demonstrate this in his mature works. He wrote about it in a series of writings, which contribute to our understanding of his opus.