Nigredo

Nikola Savić, Optima, drawing, 1995.

1. Some say that there is a condition in which the psyche scatters and disintegrates, in which one image disperses into many, a condition permeated with thick, vague presentiment. Prior to the serious, dangerous and maybe fatal illness, along with the loss of physical integrity, runs the fever of collapsing consciousness and its decay into unconscious. At that point, the round nigredo emerges, penetrating and surrounding. It defines the saltiness of future tears and the sharpness of future sight, the rage of future anger and the tenderness of future patience, the cruelty of future decisions and the coolness of future laugh. Through nigredo, with dramatic putrefaction of lymph, fading of blood and dilution of brain liquid, the individuation process begins.

2. Pigment in Nikola Savić’s drawings keeps a bear-like inertia of nigredo whose structure probably contains the spectrum of ‘peacock’s tail’ (cauda pavonis). Nigredo, however, remains hidden behind pigment – it requires an articulated approach to vision achievable only by devotion, solitude and persistence. The fall into the abyss of nigredo, as well as the successful exit from it towards regenerated structures of consciousness and perception, demand cultivated intuition. Tracing the access to nigredo, an intuitive work of seeking is woven into lines and surfaces of these drawings.

3. I can describe and present nigredo for it is an allegory, but I cannot reproduce it – nigredo is absence, which cannot be translated into any discrete code. I therefore use my eyes to tempt nigredo out of Nikola Savić’s drawings. I lick the edges of somebody’s eyes and glasses. I crush the fat Mexicans’ suppurations and bend their (once white) shirts between the blots of oil, sweat and tallow. I whip the hair and it spreads, protecting itself from crazed attacks of seborrhea. I tear the cellophane, pinch the pills and rub their contents. I move my head away due to a strong scent of melted chemicals. Some powder drops on the keyboard of a typewriter. I look at the firm: Optima. I start typing a, s, d, f, g, h..., but the keyboard does not react. It is too smooth. I throw it full strength at the passer-by. The guy approaches me, arrogantly puffing his joint. Another New-age imbecile. I shoot him in the head (using only dum-dum bullets). The fire stops. My Heckler und Koch is jammed. I take Uzi and cock it. Sony advertising on the nearest building fades into darkness. I enter Aston Martin. The car is old, it’s a wreck actually, but the engine is new and very strong. I drive through vistas that vibrate like muscles after hard work, and lack blue colour. It is the Doppler’s effect as I travel at tremendous speed. I shrink my eyelids, using my eyelashes to lower the contrast. Fine sensibility mutates into deliric irritation. Jackson Pollock passes me in his pick-up truck, but loses the wheel and crashes. I move by the scene of accident. I do not even think about stopping. On the contrary, I accelerate. It becomes cloudy and the visibility lowers rapidly. I eject from the vehicle. Somebody is coming. It is a girl and it seems that she wants me. She spins around, looking at me. She makes faces, and smiles. She offers me her lips, which I accept. I bite her tongue and finally enter nigredo.