Page 40 - Studio International - September 1970

Letter disturbs the equilibrium of the given area;
the artist's task is then to achieve a new
from Prague balance. A computer assists him: he feeds
into a programme the rules set by the en-
counter of given elements and allows the
computer to find the solution. This method
Jindrich Chalupecký determines the appearance of the picture or
the relief. This rationalism is one pole of
Sýkora's art; the other constitutes his colours
and his relation to nature. His pictures are
the product of the interception of irrational
experience and rational order and are thus
far removed from stereotypes.
At the present time Sýkora is dissatisfied with
the traditional form of a painting: a picture
continues to be a description of a sector of
reality but Sýkora wants to grasp the con-
struction and dynamism of order which
defines all that is or could be, the 'logical
Czech and Slovak art presents a very compli- space' of the world. He achieves the most total
cated picture at the moment; there is no co- expression of his ideas in some recent works,
hesion of schools, and artistic personalities as neither paintings nor sculptures. A virtually
such make themselves more felt than aes- infinite rhythmic pattern unfolds on an
thetic doctrines. A distinctive example of this irregularly shaped and bent sheet of metal
was the recent exhibition at the Špála Gallery placed freely in space. These works are no
of the sculptures and graphic works of Karel longer images of anything but the spaces they
Nepraš. The title of the exhibition was 'Turn contain, from which emerge rhythms of
it please'; many of his sculptures have handles space itself.
and a system of gears which sets them moving Between these two exhibitions the Špálova
with a rumble. Nepraš has invented his own Gallery mounted an exhibition which lasted
technique of sculpture production—he uses a only one day. Eva Kmentová placed on the
wire body and sheet metal round which he two floors of the gallery plaster casts of foot-
winds bandages and he then covers the entire prints in such a way that they led from the
structure with a thick layer of bright red entrance across the room, up the stairs and
varnish. It is actually a reconstruction of an again across the entire hall until they stopped
organic being: bones, ligaments, arteries and before a glass wall above a busy Prague street.
nerves, then muscles, and finally the skin. The Otherwise the entire space remained empty.
results are beings very much alive— a cross Eva Kmentová has concentrated in recent
between people and insects, fantastic, threat- years on casts and imprints of bits of wood,
ening and funny at the same time. They in- stones, human bodies. It is a paradoxical
corporate terror encountered when facing the type of sculpture : sculpture of absence, of
mystery of a living being, the unpredictability abandoned space, of emptiness. That was the
of his behaviour, his selfishness, malice and meaning also of those empty footprints, lead-
stupidity, but throughout intellect maintains ing into empty space above a broad street.
its supremacy. The structure of the sculp- The exhibition ended with a small festivity —
tures is precise and clear and the sculptor the sculptress distributed all the exhibition
uses laughter to face the dreadfulness of these among the visitors. All of them were young
beings. New metaphorical meanings are people, some of them ten-year-old boys.
achieved in Nepraš's latest works, where A tradition of manifestations or happenings
industrial materials— cast iron, parts of which more or less go beyond art categories
machines—are used. His exhibition showed is indigenous to Prague. Milan Knížák began
him to be, at thirty, one of the most interest- with his happenings/ games in 1963, without
ing personalities in Czech art. knowing anything of similar earlier develop-
The Nepraš show in the Špalova Gallery was ments in the United States. Today several
preceded by an extensive exhibition of the artists take part in or structure this type of
works of Zdeněk Sýkora. He first attracted manifestation, among them the sculptress
attention twenty years ago when he produced Zorka Ságlová. Recently, together with a
expressionistic, wide-flung, very colourful group of friends, she paid 'Homage to
landscapes. In the late fifties he moved to- Gustav Oberman'. This took place on
wards abstraction. Even then he painted in March 4, in snow drifts and a snow storm, the
plein-air, but as the constructive element in his temperature well below zero, in some fields
pictures became more important he developed distant from Prague. When night was draw-
a strict geometry. He has his own system, ing in she and her friends lit nineteen huge
dividing the picture by a right-angled net- fires spaced in a circle a hundred metres in
work and selecting a simple geometric ele- diameter. The author of this article did not
ment, a few variants of which he places at have the courage to follow them into such
random in various fields of this network. This Siberian weather, but those taking part