ORIGINAL, COPY (January 22, 2003)
I sent a draft of my new book, Cave Art Now, to about a dozen friends in the world of art and asked them for comments. Many have obliged me, and the book is now better for it. One of them is Goran Đorđević, director of Salon de Fleurus in New York. He begins by wondering whether cave art is art at all, but he closes his comments with a poignant question: “Is a copy of an abstract painting—by, say, Mondrian—an abstract painting, as well?” As soon as I read his message, I recalled one of his early projects. This must have been in the late 1970s. He went to the National Museum in Belgrade, where they have a fine Mondrian from the early 1930s, planted an easel in front of it, and got himself photographed while meticulously copying the painting. I do not think he wore a beret at the time, but it would not have been out of character. A realist to boot, Goran.