LENKA VÍTKOVÁ / THE BODY´S ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS OF FLOWERS

The early work of Jiří Hilmar (*1937) was marked by the art trends of the time, especially the principles of Concretism^[1] (whose club^[2] he co-founded in Czechoslovakia in 1967), as well as by the activation of the viewer, the processuality of perception and the thematization of movement. Kinetic objects in the form of mechanical machines and objects working with light sources and shadow effects^[3] were followed by several years of the artist's thorough investigation of the phenomenon of mobile procedural perception in paper reliefs folded into optical structures. These mostly square formats of various sizes produced an optical illusion through the movement of the observer and the change of his or her position in relation to the work, thus transforming the visual qualities of the surface.

In the square, whose shape the artist saw as an ideal anonymous form^[4] referring to the ideas of Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich or Victor Vasarely, he created structures in various systems according to mathematical principles and seriality from horizontally, vertically and diagonally arranged monochrome or multicolour strips of folded and, in many cases, also incised paper. The opto-kinetic principle was achieved by varying the height of the strips, their shape, the method and degree of their bending, the method of perforation, and also the shape and colour of the tempera used for individual fragments (most often circles and their sections). The variation of contrasts and intersections continued after his emigration to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1969, where he settled for more than 40 years.

The active involvement of the viewer was also part of the next cycle of works which were defined by a system of overlapping vertical strips or strings. In this new structural plan, in which one of the elements was always firmly attached to the base and the other hung freely above it, the works could again be set in motion, now literally, by the participation of the observer. Parallel to this, in the 1970s the artist created monochromes from layered tracing paper, fixed to canvas or wooden boards, most often also in square formats. The individual layers of transparent paper were only recognizable by their deliberate distortion with various types of creasing, perforation, rippling and gradations or variations of the repetitive regular patterns of the collaged fragments.

After moving to the Halfmannshof art colony in Gelsenkirchen in 1974, located in the heavily devastated landscape of the Ruhr area, Hilmar naturally moved towards environmental issues. In addition to paper, he began to incorporate into his reliefs natural materials such as jute, wax, kaolin and also wood, in the form of sticks and matchsticks. In the 1980s, when nature became an equal co-agent in his work, and creative intervention in natural processes started to prevail in his work, he turned permanently to a single material - wood. He partially dismantled the original autonomous shapes of branches and trunks and then reconstructed them by rejoining, tying or crossing them into new units of wooden objects and installations. He deliberately interfered in the originally round found fragments of trees in an invasive and openly completely contradictory square manner followed by a final gesture of re-rounding, in order to manifest the oneness of man and nature, which he sought in his work and life.

Literature:

HILMAR, Jiří, VÍCHOVÁ, Ilona, HIEKISCH-PICARD, Sepp. Jiří Hilmar/ Adagio. Praha, Museum Kampa – Nadace Jana a Medy Mládkových, 2015.

POHRIBNÝ, Arsen. Klub konkrétistů po dvaceti letech. In: Revue K, 1988–89, nos. 32–33.

“Optické reliéfy“ Jiřího Hilmara, Rozhlas, ČRo 3 – Vltava, Mozaika, 24 February 2011.

[1] The principles of Concretism were defined in interwar art by Theo van Doesburg, who first used and coined the term in 1930, and later in the 1930s by Max Bill, the main promoter of this art movement. De Stijl, the Bauhaus, and also the Russian avant-garde were followed in the 1950s by the activities of the Swiss neo-concretists led by Richard Paul Lohse, and partly by kinetic art in the Düsseldorf Zero movement, the GRAV group in Paris, the Gruppo N in Padua and the Gruppo T in Milan.

[2] Together with Tomáš Rajlich, Radoslav Kratina, Miroslav Vystrčil and the art theorist Arsén Pohribný he co-founded the KK/CC - The Concretists’ Club (9 May 1967 - ca. 1972), whose activities were followed by the new KK2 in 1997 and KK3 in 2007.

[3] In this context it is also worth mentioning hydro-kinetic objects from 1974.

[4] “Optické reliéfy“ Jiřího Hilmara, Rozhlas, ČRo 3 – Vltava, Mozaika, 24 February 2011.

LENKA VÍTKOVÁ / THE BODY´S ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS OF FLOWERS

22.11.2014 - 15.01.2015

Fait Gallery MEM
Božetěchova Street 1 (entrance from Metodějova Street), Brno
22/11/2014 – 15/1/2015
Opening: 20/11/2014 at 7pm
Curator: Jan Zálešák

The Body’s answers to the questions of Flowers is a paraphrase of the verse "The body's answers to the questions of landscape" that is the start of one of the poems included in the collection of Short summer processes by Petr Kabeš. The exhibition's title reminds us of the existence of continuous ongoing dialogue happening on a preconscious or "out of conscious" level: before we are able to realise, or even critically reflect, we have always already, somehow related to the world, and it is through the "interface" of our body that we do this. Painting arises precisely at this interface, which is also one of the reasons, why it does not lose anything in the recency and the intensity with which it can speak to us, although it has been repeatedly neglected in recent decades.

In the MEM gallery Lenka Vítková presents works from the a recent period (the first paintings were started in late summer, some are only a few weeks old). In the exhibiton the paintings of flowers take turns with figural paintings which repeat the same female figure theme, bent at the waist so that the hands are touching the ground. The center of gravity of the bent body moves down and forward, closer to the ground. Unlikely to be a dancing figure, a special exercise? Head facing down and pelvis pushed forward: the body is shown free of any symbolism, additionally it stands on "all four". However the animality of this position is not in any way degrading. Moreover Lenka Vítková adds to the figures a certain grandeur by the method of applying colour (she emphasises the vertical brush strokes more strongly than detailed modeling). The silhouettes of bent bodies do not carry any story, they speak to us by "the body language" - the same language they answer to the flowers, which the author paints with the same austerity, but with an even stronger passion for colour. The colour palette seems too intense at first glance - all the shades of green, blue and purple, placed in solid lumps, side by side may start to look like a colour card. But, in the end, isn’t each flower with large petals the same fascinating color card of tones and valeurs?

Flowers and bodies without faces. They are objects to be viewed, but they do not look back at us. It is different with a pair of heads. They disturb the continuity of the dialogue that lead paintings on the walls between them. They turn directly at us and therefore give the dialogue a different direction. Maybe it's the dark shadows hiding the eyes that tears apart the conventional scheme of painting exhibitions, in which the audience view reflects from the surface of the wall with hanging paintings. The view of the hidden eyes goes out of the surface, towards me and enables me to realise that my own body is a living thing within the space.

The paintings are born in moments of privacy, in which the mind almost splits up and it‘s particles remain together with pigments firmly fixed to the surface of the painting. They are the result of a quiet conversation and speak to us as well – they let us see, through their surface, something that would otherwise remain hidden inside the human body as in a locked box.

Jan Zálešák

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