#dark disko

New York had the young Basqiat, Picasso was once young in Paris, and Rade Petrašević has his prime time now in Vienna. With rich contemporary Austrian art scene, this young painter, with Yugoslav origines, had great mentors on Academy of Fine Arts, brilliant artists Franz Graf and Daniel Richter, who developed so many other talents. Rade’s style can be described as modern expressionism, with intentional avoiding of “post–modern” term. Living between Vienna and Berlin, Rade is involved in many creative projects. One of them is DARK DISCO.

DARK DISCO are the parties who gather various electronic and experimental artists and DJs, not only from Europe, but Balkans, United States, Middle East. For every party, they publish a compilation CD, and, in that way, directly support the underground scene. His publications can be also seen in Eine magazine, and in future shows in Vienna and Cologne. 

Rade, when you stand in front of your picture, what is your first thought? I first think Why is that diabolic picture still in my studio?

Can you desrcibe your relationship with Franz Graf? Franz Graf is guilty for everything! I LOVE HIM.

Franz tought me some things I never ever really wanted to learn… In a positive way, of course.

How do you paint, what suits you better? What do you think about new trends, what is important for you in painting nowadays (collage, combined technique …) Is it more an idea or what? I’m better off alone, it happens a lot that I paint over night…Trends come and go. In art, trends are made by galleries, not by artists themselves, it’s a fact. It’s all one big fantasy, which doesn’t exist for the artist. They’ve been always using different media and expressing without any trends. It’s a marketing strategy without any serious connection with art.

Who are the buyers of young authors now? It’s a good question. There are lot of young people in seeking for cheap, but good art. Also, you have young and ambitious buyers. As I’m concerned, I have a modest number of professional buyers who buy explicit art without galleries (it is less expensive, in a way, and we make some kind of intimate relationship, which can be very interesting).

And, what about DARK DISCO nights? DARK DISCO are Philipp Ruthner and I. The idea came in 2008, when Philipp played sort of dark music with some more lights off, in a little club in Vienna. We began with DARK DISCO as it is now last year, from one simple reason–we have great musical potential in our surroundings–and need for the music underground label doesn’t exist. So, the conception of DARK DISCO is: we lower the lights, it’s a permanent disco–fog and strobe, and one or two DJs play dark tunes. Also, every party has a performance about 10 to 20 minutes, with an artist who is intensively into sound or noise. We planned to do for every party one CD with experimental music, noise, to dark pop or electro/techno.

First CD came out in March this year, and you can see the tracklists on www.darkdisko.blogspot.com . Every CD is limited from 100–200 pieces, and includes the exclusive tracks you can not find on some common labels.

Further plans are to gain some money that we can pay the bands with the similar affinity, including international bookings.

I have to ask you, do you follow fashion blogs? I follow fashion as I follow art blogs. I support the idea of our time that everybody can express through blogs, like a big organizations. I have some huge fashion designers who I follow, but I also like being surprised with some underground fashion labels, and semi–professional common people, their ideas about contemporary or retro fashion. It’s very interesting that big fashion houses follow those blogs and what’s happening on the streets, putting those styles or trends into their collections. In fashion everything is possible and we don’t have to chase the labels to represent our own point of view. That’s why the blogs are most surprising, to give us the inspiration in creating our own style or image… Or, to show us that we’re not so original or individual as we thought.

What is next? The next are DARK DISCO nights with CDs, couple of exhibitions in Vienna and Germany, and also plans for edition of fanzines limited to 100 pieces, possible online.

Brooklyn VS Upper East Side Hell's Kitchen!

More info: http://radepetrasevic.com

http://xradexpetrasevic.blogspot.com/