The opening of the independent exhibition "Multiverse" of the academic artist Simon Shemov on September 27 and a tribute dedicated to Mile Korubin on September 28 will be the main art events of the following week.

Two large and extremely important exhibitions are ready to open in the representative facilities Daut-Pashin Hamam and Cifte Hamam of the National Gallery. The grand opening of the solo exhibition "Multiverse" by the academic artist Simon Shemov will take place on September 27, 2023 (Wednesday), at 20 p.m., in the Daut Pasha hammam.

At the opening, there will be an address by the director of the National Gallery, Dr. Dita Starova Qerimi, followed by Academician Vlada Urošević, Macedonian poet and laureate of the "Golden Wreath" at the 2023 "Poetry Evenings in Struga". The closing speech will be given by the art historian Ana Frangovska, curator of the project.

Simon Shemov is a multimedia artist, professor, researcher, lover of nature and the cosmos. The "Multiverse" project will present his artistic achievements that refer to several themes that run as a core throughout his life's oeuvre, namely the exploration of the universe, pantheism, archetypes, children's play, folklore, etc.

- Continuing the eternal search for the research of real-imaginary, space-time, proportions, relations, distances, Shemov creates a very powerful visual, spatial, "sound" search for the secrets of the cosmos, sent through the magical Daut-pashin hamam. The research and metaphysics of the cosmos is developed by Shemov in several different media, from his specialty – the virtuosity and uniqueness in creating works from handmade paper, canvases, drawings, combined techniques, collages, with which the multimedia narrative gains even more transparency – curator Anna points out. Frangovska.

The incentive for organizing a tribute dedicated to Mile Korubin (born on September 28, 1922 in Prilep, and died on September 13, 2000 in Skopje), an eminent Macedonian painter, is the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of his birth. These anniversaries are basic occasions through which the National Gallery, as an institution that for seven and a half decades takes care of the preservation and protection of part of the moving cultural heritage from the art history of our country, continuously presents the top national cultural achievements.

This primary vision, mission and function is followed by the efforts to constantly remind about the particular specifics of the significant legacies from the work of the great artists of modern Macedonian painting and sculpture, through the selection and presentation of works that are found in several state and public institutions from the country. as well as in private collections.

- The time span of five decades of creative activity counts Mile Korubin among the most prolific Macedonian painters, as well as pedagogues. His reality, transformed through painterly visions, with a specific artistic handwriting, manifests its own logic of the "journey" from the object to the non-object, that is, from the concrete reality to the abstract. Tendently avoiding trends, the metaphorical lyrical approach is felt and developed by following the imagination from concreteness all the way to geometric associativeness. At the same time, the subconsciously established harmony and order of the elements in the spatially calm to "blissfully" floating compositional structure always dominate as a constant. His lucid painting language and balanced artistic orientations are inclined towards aestheticization, the reduction of painterly expression, the departure from perspective, the liberation of the pure space of the atmosphere, towards exoticism and mysticism through the lyricism of pure form, which distinguishes him as an author dedicated to the persistence and consistency of own thought – is in the announcement of the tribute to Mile Korubin in Cifte Hamam.

(The text was published in "Cultural Press" number 197, in the printed edition of the newspaper "Sloboden Pechat" on 23-24.9.2023)