Wednesday, June 11, 2014

World Cup '74 Portrait #79 (Miroslav Pavlovic: Yugoslavia)




graphite & putty eraser, with watercolour pencil/30x21cm

Today’s subject to emerge from the random generator is Miroslav Pavlovic, stickers of whom were included in both the FKS & Panini collectors’ albums published to coincide with the event & who was selected for the official Yugoslavia squad for the 1974 World Cup Finals, but went on to play in only 78 minutes of one match, the final second phase ‘dead rubber’ 1 – 2 defeat to Sweden (the winner coming after Pavlovic had departed proceedings).

Again, the image quality of the photocopy of another of the Yugoslavian photo-stickers displays a particularly bleached result, with the consequence that the drawing based upon this immediate visual reference, with consultation also of a 1:1 scale colour copy of the source, reflects this, suggesting the ‘ghostly’ atmosphere that surrounds the project as a whole – Pavlovic being another of the great majority of the players to feature at the ’74 World Cup who made no impression upon my consciousness at the time of the event & televisual exposure to its action, only emerging from the depths of time over the past couple of years, via the conduit of the sticker albums, when research & preparation for the project began in earnest.

Further to the ‘memorial’ aspect of the drawings, Pavlovic is another of those to feature at the 1974 World Cup no longer with us, having passed away over 10 years ago, early in 2004, & Yugoslavia, of course, is one of those states to be represented at the tournament that no longer exists as such.

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