Page 29 - Studio International - June 1971

be propped up slightly on the side nearest the where, again with the artist's financial help, participate in his first happening— Thanksgiving
wall so that the ants can crawl out. Then, with `originals by the academic painter A. Mlynárčik' —in the spring of 1967. It was only then that
a concentrated sugar solution, trace a number of were sold—i.e. selected gastronomic Slovak police hostility towards such 'unclassifiable'
lines and circles on the wall. Attracted by the dishes. The previous winter, during the world events forced them to seek the cover of privacy.
smell of the sugar, the ants will form swarming skiing championships in the High Tatra (I remember the pronouncement of the
designs on the wall. At the end of the mountains, Mlynárčik and his friends, musicians scandalized judge—a woman—who said to
exhibition, sweep the ants once more into the and artists Adamčiak, Cyprich and Urbásek, Brikcius : 'What would it be like if grown-ups
polythene sack and take them back to the held their 'First Snow Festival' with played in the streets like children ?') Knížák is
woods. The room should then be thoroughly `interpretations' of old and modern masters at present organising a poetical-utopian
sprayed with DDT.' Variations : in a garden, from Leonardo to Raysse. Inspired by their community in the country, while Brikcius has
with bees; in a farmyard, with chickens; in a subjects, they carried out several dozen events carried out his event Sundial on a flat piece of
meadow, with sheep ... it can be performed with in the snow and using snow—once again at their terrain near Prague—an actualization of time in
human animals, and has sometimes been done. own expense. The same group, this time led by which the participants marked the shadow cast
The ascetic way in which these artists work the painter Jana Želibská, celebrated the by the sun every hour; he has also begun to
is reflected in the considerable investments they Betrothal of Spring in the countryside not far publish, though in children's magazines,
often make in their work, with very little hope from Bratislava. An aircraft flew over the suggestions for new games.
that it will ever yield any returns. For someone spring meadows dropping hundreds of white It is certainly an extensive gamut—from the
like Cigler the materials alone are very ribbons; the people who gathered there collected studio seclusion of Kopeck to the grand
expensive; Jiri Sopko, who paints large them and tied them on to trees, bushes, and on gestures of Mlynárčik. Even so the same
pictures with the satirical fury of an Ensor and to themselves; flautists played, alone or conditions similarly nurtured the widely
the sensuality of a Bonnard, and who recently together and the crowd were given pipes and differing individuals whose work constitutes
had his first exhibition in Nova Sin, has given whistles, so that they could play as they wished. today's scene in Czechoslovakia. Art is
nearly all of them to his friends; Milan Dobeš, Afterwards, sprays of myrtle, symbol of developing here by its own logic, just as
a Bratislava kineticist and luminist, by now marriage, were pinned on everyone : the whole everywhere else—with this obvious difference,
quite well known, had a signal tower built at event was in fact related to ancient wedding that the work of art here does not become an
his own expense for a large sculpture exhibition customs still alive today in Slovakia. 'People object of suspicion in that considerable stress is
in the park at Piešťany. The tower, which had sat around in the meadows, listened to music laid on its formal standards; the artist is not so
coloured revolving surfaces, was thirty-six feet and, themselves decorated, wandered among urgently forced into various forms of
high and soldiers then illuminated it with their the decorated trees, children were playing—an non-object-art. As in other parts of the world,
huge spot-lights, creating in the surrounding atmosphere first of joyful tension, then of the artists are a distinctive micro-society, but
space a light-work 12 X 12 X 12 miles, with wedding bliss,' wrote Želibská. not one living on the fringes of the macro-society.
monumental changing colour reflections in Alex Mlynárčik, until then a painter, founded Its members have their own strict standards,
the sky. At the same exhibition, entitled this Bratislava group in the spring of 1965 and and are considered within this micro-society as
`Polymusical space', Alex Mlynárčik took part from that time on has developed his own natural and matter-of-fact, even though their
with his Juniales, and the affair was climaxed conceptions of the happening. They are not to standards are radically different from those of
by a gala feast with a lottery (the prize was a be esoteric rituals, but should take place within the contemporary world surrounding them.
symbol of good luck, a live piglet), brass-band the context of everyday, and should take This micro-society is even more distinctive
music and dancing, which he financed, and anyone into account. In the same vein Knížák here than elsewhere: for between them and the
organized his happening—games in the autumn rest of society the connecting link is missing
of 1964. They took place in ordinary Prague —the work of art as a marketable product. On
5 Naděźda Plíšková streets, and he accepted casual passers-by as the other hand, this micro-society instinctively
Installation shot, Spálova Gallery, seeks a different kind of connection with the rest
Prague, 197o. participants. Likewise Evien Brikcius, through
Photo: Helena Pospíšilová posters in Prague streets, invited anyone to of society. It is perhaps a result of the old
democratic traditions of this country that the
artist so urgently turns outward, towards
others, that he so clearly feels his social
function as a responsibility which outweighs
other responsibilities. His material conditions
are unfavourable but this eliminates all
delusion from the sense of his work and reveals
it to be, more clearly than elsewhere, what it
really is : not material products, nor a
dilletantish past-time, but a mission which is to
change the consciousness of people, their
perceptions, feelings, thoughts, desires. Milan
Knížák sent a telegram to the exhibition
`Happening & Fluxus', held in Cologne in
October, 1970, where he was expected to
present an event of his own. It read: 'I cannot
live anywhere else, I must live here.' Many other
Czech and Slovak artists who, like Knížák, were
able to spend some time in foreign countries
during the intermezzo of liberalization, have had
the same experience. With few exceptions they
have returned home. Without the inherited
atmosphere of their country they found they
could no longer work. q