Page 43 - Studio International - June 1972

such a society, and this, today, is the only from Dada. And so from about the middle of
position from which he can make a connection the fifties a complex structure began to form in
with the reality of his time and where he can Prague, developing from Surrealism back to
decide what, as an artist, he ought to do. Dada. It was characterised by a point of view
There is another important circumstance difficult to define, but all the more provocative
which contributed to the formation of this because of this — a relationship of both
artistic generation in Czechoslovakia. In the disassociation and identification with the
decisive years after 195o they had no information modern world, lyrical admiration and ironic
about what was happening in art in the rest of criticism at the same time and with the same
the world. Naturally enough, they turned to accent. I wrote about some of these artists in
indigenous traditions, which were fortunately my last Prague letter (S.I. June 71). This time I
rich and strong. From Art Nouveau through must mention Bedrich DlouhY. For years he has
Expressionism and Cubism to Surrealism, there been working at combining assemblage and
was a continuous series of important artistic painting and now he is doing compositions
figures here, and behind them the great which usually consist of complex constructions
background of Central European Baroque. of dismantled technical devices and modern
Some of these artists, like Beran, took their materials enclosed in Plexiglas cases and placed terrifying. The key to the peculiarity of his art
orientation from the baroque conception of is perhaps his childhood in war-time England
painting and from this point of departure they where his family were immigrants : he has
developed their own versions of Abstract vivid memories of the air-raids on London and
Expressionism and Material Painting at the he got his first visual education from comics.
end of the fifties. It was an expression The printmaker Oldrich Kulhánek has pushed
consistent with their feeling that the age had this Pop-Surrealism to the extreme. He has
lost any coherence and meaning. To go on from found the image of the modern world in the
this ethical and aesthetic nihilism, however, was iconography of contemporary visual mass-
no easy matter. Rather than resisting the media and in his complex compositions he
contemporary crisis of values, these artists coldly reflects advertisments, pornographic
succumbed to it. The tragic fate of many of publications, political propaganda, comics and
them later on recalls the tragedy of Pollock's, reproductions of art classics, all together. But
Gorky's and Wols's generation. here the laughter stops.
But there were other artists who, from the A basic condition for accurately depicting
very beginning, placed their work at a clear the modern world is, for all these artists,
distance from their time. Art was for them a maintaining a distance from it. That is why
game played not only within this world and they maintain a strict aesthetic order in their
with it, but also against it. Their obvious work. Vozniak and others return to the
inspiration was Surrealism (and beyond that traditions of Dada and Surrealism in order to
those glimpses of Rudolphian Mannerism) but defend their human and artistic integrity and
at the same time they cast off its occult, their chief media are games, carnival-like
esoteric and aesthetically antiquarian tendency persiflage and mad fancy. Jiff KWH., whose work
using humour and that close relationship with would be unthinkable without Surrealism,
the contemporary world which is inseparable Dada and above all Futurism, depends most of
all on the objectivity of his artistic methods.
against the background of beautifully painted He uses collage and assemblage and his
landscapes with low horizons and wide skies. obvious theme is the destruction of written and
His old friend Jaroslav Vozniak proceeds from iconographic communication in the modern
the same point, but whereas Dlouhy's art, very world. His art, however, resists this destruction
lyrical and very painterly, is in fact still carried through its organization, its clear and
by the old romanticism of longing, Vozniak is distinct form. The range of invention and the
by nature a draughtsman and a dramatist and volume of Kolar's work was dazzling. In many
beneath his drastic and mocking use of modern cases, however, it might be feared that his
iconographic material lies the authentic vision virtuoso methods overshadowed the intrinsic
of a tragic poet. His vision is precise and meaning of his work. Last year Kolar became
uncompromising : nine months before the seriously ill and since his recovery he has been
death of Sharon Tate, Vozniak painted a large producing much less. His pieces are now larger,
picture which was later shown at his one-man but at the same time much less ostentatious
exhibition in Stockholm. In the foreground is and, it could be said, more monumental as
Sharon Tate looking over her shoulder, and well. Again and again objects from poor
behind her the leering face of Dracula with households appear, hidden references to
blood-stained lips, and in the background, like Kola's proletarian childhood.
something unreal, is depicted the embryonic His strict methodicality led Kolar to declare
development of the human being from the himself a neo-constructivist. Prague
sperm down to birth. Another nuance of this Neo-Constructivism began in the mid-sixties as
aesthetic can be found in the studio of Milan a protest against the prevailing surrealistic-
Ressel: huge detailed drawings which seem to mannerist atmosphere. The Surrealists
have been inspired by science-fiction with its considered the work of art as a place where the
ambiguous attitude to contemporary machine extra-rational side of reality could be best
civilization as something at once dazzling and reflected and therefore defended the work