The Osten Gallery, in collaboration with the World Association of Visual Arts (WAVA), awarded the "Artist of the World" award to painter Kiro Urdin.

The "Artist of the World" award is traditionally awarded as recognition, motivation and encouragement for international artists. Painter Kiro Urdin, born in 1945 in Strumica, is a visual and multimedia artist, who studied art in Paris and worked as a journalist before dedicating himself to art.

His most famous work, Planetarium, is a multimedia project and an early example of the planetarium movement, while the film of the same name was shown at the Monte Carlo Film Festival. Planetarium is a 48-square-meter oil painting created over two years in more than 30 locations around the world, including Jerusalem, New York, the Berlin Wall, the Great Pyramids of Giza, Machu Picchu, and the Great Wall of China. The project symbolically unites diverse cultural and historical sites into a single artistic vision.

Kiro Urdin lives and works between Macedonia and Belgium, creating art with a strong belief in love, friendship and human values. His work encompasses painting, film, dance, sculpture, photography, literature and philosophy, with a central focus on the unification of cultures and artistic disciplines.

In addition to painting, he shoots documentaries and writes short aphorisms. His way of expressing himself is often in an aphoristic style. As part of the "Osten Biennial Skopje 2024", his exhibition is on display in the "Osten" gallery, and we used his presence in Skopje for a short and inspiring meeting.

What feeling did the award of "Osten" and SAVU evoke in you?

– It is a decision of “Osten”. The very act of recognition for the artist is not his opinion, but the path he has traveled, and in some cases the objectivity of those who give the assessment. I am glad that after a long time I am presenting myself to the Macedonian public again, because here they have not shown much interest in me exhibiting in any of the representative galleries and museums. I received an invitation from “Osten” and accepted it. Usually I answer with “yes” or “no”, and in this case I accepted the invitation.

Of course, I am glad to be in Macedonia, and what pleasantly surprised me was the complete presentation of the works and authors of the "Osten Biennial Skopje 2024". As I was informed, artists from 40 countries have been invited, the works are made in different techniques, and the exhibition has a spiritual continuity of what is understood by contemporary painting in the world. Each artist represents his own world, but the exhibition shows the language of cohesion between different worlds, and that surprised me very positively.

Since I have extensive experience, I know that such an organization requires enormous energy to realize the exhibition. Therefore, I congratulate the management of "Osten" for having managed to present a part of the contemporary art scene to the Macedonian public. This is not only about professionalism, but also about enormous enthusiasm to do things that one deeply believes in.

To what extent are awards a valorization of artistic work?

– I have never run after success. That doesn't interest me. Every day I think that I need to take the next step, and what the next step is – I never know. When I know in advance how something should look, then it is technique, but it is not art. Art is an ocean, and technique is just a drop in the ocean. Why? Because there is no emotion, and when something has no emotion, then it is dead. That is why I say that if a person wants to stay young and carry the child within him all his life, then he should always take the next step. That applies to art, but also to love, to friendship. The next step should always be taken in order to deepen both art and love and friendship. One should never wait for someone else to take the first step. Every new step in a person's life is giving wind to the spirit that moves forward, or spreads left or right.

Since I participated in the opening of the exhibition of the "Osten Biennale Skopje 2024", I noticed that the gallery was packed with an audience that is close to art and a fluid energy was created that kept the audience in the gallery for a long time. I often say that we are not a small or large nation, because there are no big and small. The size of a people or nation is not measured by centimeters or physical dimensions, but by the size of its spirit. In that context, we do not say Germany, but Beethoven, we do not say Italy, but Monteverdi, we do not say Tuscany, but Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo. All the energy, however, is contained in the person. It is the collective that can support or reject him, but the real artist is the one who suffers and who fights against injustice. And injustice gives him additional energy and strengthens his immunity.

In this crazy world in which huge tectonic tremors are taking place on a political, social, and economic level, man is like a frantic point that bounces off the walls of loneliness and seeks its way where it can stand. In that labyrinth of uncertainty, art is here to calm and save the creator, but also to reveal to him the vision beyond the horizon. Art does not only serve to provide a description of the current reality, but must also have elements of vision, to look beyond the horizon line.

As part of the exhibition of your works at the Osten Gallery, you can see a documentary about the creation of your painting titled "Tabula Rasa." How does the process of creating a painting proceed?

– The term “tabula rasa” dates back to ancient times, but I stuck to Rene Descartes’ interpretation as “blank slate”. When I had an exhibition in one of the oldest galleries in Antwerp (Belgium), which is called “Black Panther”, the gallery owner asked me if a large white wall posed a challenge for me. By the way, the gallery has four sections, and one of them was a cathedral in which the sick were treated in the past. I answered the gallery owner that there was a challenge and offered to make a painting 5x3 meters. After five days, the dimensions of the painting grew to 10x3 meters. Of course, I never know in advance what I will paint. I don’t know when I will start or when I will finish. Whether it is good – I don’t know. Whether it is bad – I have no idea.

However, during that period I met a filmmaker from Belgium and we agreed that I would take the picture and he would film the entire process of making the picture. During the process, I was taking the picture, but I was also directing and editing it in my head. The shooting took four days, but the painting of the picture took four months, because I used oil paint, which takes a long time to dry on the canvas. I have never liked acrylic, which dries quickly, but I always use oil paints, because they excite me, bring different vibrations and give a sense of nobility.

In every painting, the basic rule is that there should be balance, and the forces and elements in the painting should go in one direction and reach the resultant point of what is being worked on. The resultant is a great secret, because it is different in every painting. In that sense, the most important are the spirit, the courage, the love and the energy that will be brought into the painting.

The moment in which the work is made and the energy of the environment in which the painting is done are also important. It should be taken into account that the spirit also has its own transformation depending on the place in which the painter is. Take Van Gogh as an example, in whose paintings there are completely different colors in the works made in the Netherlands from those he painted in the south of France. He was the same in both the Netherlands and France, but the transformation of the spirit under the influence of light is reflected in his works.

What drives the energy and transformation in your works?

– In my case, my great-grandmother, my mother's grandmother, was called Makedonka, my mother was called Makedonka, my daughter is called Makedonka. My energy from which I spring is called Macedonia. It is a completely natural feeling that has no mythology, but it is an underground source of energy for me and in my painting.

From a historical point of view, this is where literacy once began, with icons and frescoes the Renaissance once began. In my opinion, the peak of painting is in the Renaissance. The mastery achieved by Michelangelo, Raphael, Caravaggio, Da Vinci is unsurpassed. Art adapts to the speed of time, but the closer you get to the speed of time, the more the quality of the works declines.

One thing has been disappointing me a lot lately in Macedonia. A magic word called "culture" has been turned into entertainment by a large part of the media. Culture is not entertainment, and art as a part of culture is sacrifice, pain and uncertainty. In prehistory, man was primitive, and in history – brutal. A society that has no relationship to culture cannot have a relationship to anything. Culture is not a spectacle, but is everyday hard work and uncertainty without limits. The greater the pain, the stronger the energy inside the artist. Joy is superficial and short-lived. Pain can last for years and has its own reasons why it is pain.

Your biggest life project is starting the planetarism movement. How did the idea of ​​taking pictures at all the key points of planet Earth come about?

– For the first time, I will be a little immodest and say that globalism in the world began with the painting and the film "Planetarium". Globalism as a term appeared somewhere around 1999, and I made the painting and the film "Planetarium" in 1996 and 1997. The film was shown at a festival in Monte Carlo, where my idea for the planetarism movement was presented. For the making of the painting "Planetarium" I had such strong energy that I entered all the forbidden places on the planet. The most important thing is that I managed to finish the painting. I gathered all that energy from all the sanctuaries of world culture into one point, into one painting. What is stronger is the idea itself, which says that culture creates synthesis, and politics breaks down synthesis. Since I am not interested in politics, my idea was to bring all the impressions from the most significant points of human civilization, to imprint them in one work.

During those two years while I was making the painting, many hallucinatory things happened to me. I often ended up in places I didn't know exactly where they were without the help of maps or navigation. I didn't do anything to show that I had done something, but all the energy and all the creation came spontaneously. Wherever the wind blew me, there I went.

I don't know if that matches the concept of modern life, but I am who I was born to be and I can't be anything else. I have one great advantage, and that is that I don't ask for anything from life. I'm not interested in either recognition or material values. The main thing I want is to not ask for anything more than what life gives me. To be strong and to accept myself as I am.

The same thing happens to me in art. No work has ever turned out exactly as I imagined it, because that is the technical principle of work. Art is a journey into uncertainty, and the journey itself is much more interesting than when you know exactly what you should do. Commercial artists do what people like, and freelance artists create works that spontaneously come out of their soul.

(The interview was published in "Kulturen Pechat" number 268, in the print edition of the newspaper "Sloboden Pechat" on 15-16.2.2025)