Autobiographic Notes

(From Calendar Millennium Almanac by Charles Billich, 2000)

I was born on the sixth of September 1934 when Istria was Italian and part of The Venice.

At home we spoke Venetian, Italian, Croatian and German. I identified with the aesthetic symbols of the regime and as a child and adolescent I was enchanted by Art Deco, for some Fascist art, for others still "Futurism".

In 1945, through a plot between Roosevelt and Stalin, I was passed, together with the whole of Istria, behind the Iron Curtain. There I was exposed to a fresh cultural climate full of vitality but unfortunately immersed in the sadness of the marxist idiocy. I went to Rijeka Grammar. Later the Institute of Economy, where we learned about business the Russian way, Marxism-Leninism, a form of boring profane catechism. Also Logistics and Ballistics, meaning terrorism, export of revolutions and global communist victory. Mathematics, Algebra, Geometry, etc.

The first drawing lessons at the Classical Lyceum, together with humanities.

Miraculously I was accepted by the Corp de Ballet of Rijeka's Opera, and this offered me the most exhilarating, though short-lived dancing career. I still take around the world my inventory of metaphysical choreographic ideas based on ballet. Absurd hyperbolae which include exaggerations on human limits but exclude gravity. Student and dancer, I was drawn also to writing and illustration, and found a niche in the minority publishing in Istria, consisting of a daily, various magazines and books on the Italian language. I was fascinated by journalism and soon, abusing my position, I found ways of expressing my dissent by publishing surreptitiously "erroneous" ideas contrary to the system.

One day my seditious activities were uncovered, so I attempted to flee to Italy. However, the girl with whom I wanted to share this adventure, as the good spy she turned out to be, betrayed me and I got ambushed and arrested.

It was 1952. A Slovenian communist court dealt me ten years of political Gulag. The time I spent in prison, ignoring incidentals such as starvation, chill-bite and sadism, was very useful. I met many intellectuals who were political lifers. They had status and certain liberties and could obtain books from the outside. They delighted teaching me languages, art history and many practical skills.

During the periods of punitive isolation I had plenty of time for meditation and to make mental catalogues of many cosmic messages that are still supplying much subject matter. Strangly I never painted the conditions of that episode, but even then I disliked social realism, which I perceived as an arm of official propaganda.

As Maribor jail was a vast penitentiary and contained its own theatre, I had the opportunity of learning about set design. I soon became designer in charge and sure enough there are still histrionic traces to my work, lots of them!

After only a couple of years of this purgatory — here's the best instant in my life, the maddest euphoria, joy irrepressible, orgasm most potent: sudden and immediate amnesty! How can one appreciate freedom without having tasted slavery? I'm grateful to fate.

The flight into Austria was a success! I stayed in Austria two years, painting murals for a brewery and going to Salzburg Art School. It was there that I felt, maybe moved by the baroque magic and the beauty of the city, that I had a certain God-given gift. That's stating humility and vanity at the same time! It was there and then that I opted for a future as an artist, throwing to the wind more cautious career options.

Even as student I've always had the good fortune to be able to survive with the sale of a painting here and there, at times supplementing with odd jobs like psychiatric nurse, morgue attendant, taxi driver, decorator, restaurer, restaurateur, portrait painter and art director. Once I got an offer to work on a film with Roger Vadim, "Night games". It was about an artist.

I was the stunt artist who had to paint her pictures and create her artistic development. What schizofrenia!

As it was being filmed in Manila, I enrolled at the University of the Philippines Art School where I remained for some time. Art studies there were a euphemism. But I was lucky to be invited to join an elite group of painters; patrician homes put on sumptuous extemporanea for us. Working bee workshops with the best models, orgiastic banquets and "mariendas", picturesque surroundings, orchestras. Surprisingly, out of all this decadence, I.was managing some pretty strong and exotic stuff.:

In 1983 I was invited by the City of Spoleto to exhibit during the Festival of Two Worlds. This became an annual pilgrimage. In 1987, together with the composer Giancarlo Menotti, I was awarded the coveted Spoleto Prize. The "Cityscape" concept was born just there, in Spoleto, a walled-in city that conceals so much beauty. I found in Spoleto the way of exposing city secrets. Ignoring walls and obstructions. Deliberately evidencing choices. Manipulating reality. An obsession that I transposed to larger cities, from Sydney to New York, from Rome to Düsseldorf.

1988 saw me as the Official Artist of the Australian Bicentennial and I followed part of the First Fleet route, the one that brought English convicts to colonize our great Continent. I learned some ropes and how to climb the shrouds with all my art supplies. With few resulting works but lots of thematic reserve for future marine work. In 1990 I was artist in residence at Lotrscak Castle, guest of the Museum of Zagreb, Capital city of Croatia. Post-communist Croatia is rapidly becoming the cradle of middle-european culture and it's all there to discover and love.

To work and exhibit in various parts of the world, overcoming logistic and adaptational difficulties through living in various Australian States, in Italy, Croatia, Japan, France, is a useful agony for eluding the "Everyday". The various influences, impulses and cultures are symbiotic with an inclusion into the life-work, although not always visibly so.

As well, the enriching of the visual patrimony through shows and galleries proffers new role models to emulate, subjects and ideas, refines the "metier" and confirms the individuality. I hope to be always allowed to be an international artist to mark an exceptional historic era, an era of ecumenicity and brotherhood at a thrilling moment in time. A moment charged with an exalted understanding between nationalities, races, cultures and religions. I'm happy to announce my appointment as Sports Artist of the year for 2000, a coveted title with a 20 year tradition, conferred by the United States Sports Academy.

Source:

  • Charles Billich, Calendar Millennium Almanac, 2000

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Created: Sunday, January 30, 2005; Last Updated: Tuesday, June 15, 2021
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