TO THE STARS
In this artwork Robert Gligorov creates an impossible yet surprisingly believable organism. The trunk, the quintessential element of the plant world, is transformed into a living body: wings, that belong to the animal world, start growing from it, creating a hybrid creature, suspended between nature and imagination. It is a symbolic migration, in which plant becomes animal and animal becomes landscape, in a continuous metamorphosis process. This image invites reflection on identity. The trunk represents the Me, which carries the memory of one’s own roots. Yet a trunk, when severed from its habitat cannot survive. In the same way, human beings can only fully exist when they recognize their connection to what surrounds them. Roots are not a limitation, but the essential condition for all types of growth.
From this awareness the transition from Me to We starts. The artwork moves beyond the idea of the self-sufficient individual in order to envision a community founded on interdependence, where each element draws strength from the presence of the other. The hybridization of the animal and the vegetal world is not merely a surrealist exercise, but a concrete metaphor of an ecosystem in which these differences do not divide but complement one another. The message the artist wants to communicate is very powerful and relevant today. In an age marked by individualism, Gligorov suggests that there cannot be evolution without connection. The qualities of other individuals do not represent threats, but an opportunity for mutual growth. This thought recalls the Ikigai philosophy, which states that individual well-being is fully realized when each person can rely on the strength of the community while, at the same time, contributing to the common good.
The artwork becomes a manifesto for a new ecology of existence, both environmental and human. It is an invitation to recognize that our identity does not end within the self, but finds its most authentic meaning in our ability to belong, to share, and to migrate together towards new territories. In this visionary, seemingly impossible organism, Gligorov imagines a society in which diversity is not a boundary, but the very driving force of life. We are just like trees because our roots reach deep into the earth, yet we dream of the sky.
The MeWe logo translates the same idea into an essential visual symbol: Me and We overlap, intersect and almost merge, making it difficult to determine where one ends and the other begins.
The individual does not disappear within the collective, but instead finds new possibilities within it.
A more conscious, fertile, and human-centered society emerges when individual qualities, rather than remaining isolates, connect with one another and become a shared resource.
Robert Gligorov
(Kriva Palanka, Macedonia, 1960) Throughout his career, Robert Gligorov has freely experimented with a wide range of artistic languages and practices. An actor, illustrator and performer, he works across video, photography, installation and painting, exploring the limits and ambiguities of representation. The artist’s own image is a recurring subject within an irreverent and unconventional practice that remains attentive to the paradoxes of the present. He has held solo exhibitions in Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Milan and Rome, and his works are held in important public and private collections.
The force and violence of some of Gligorov’s images arise from the need to push beyond the boundaries of what is visible and tolerable, revealing the invisible and opening new paths for creativity.
For Gligorov, art is not simply about creating an object, but about its ability to make us more aware of our feelings and of ourselves. His works explore safety, danger, dependence and identity, questioning not only what is happening to our lives, but also what we are becoming.
