'Art is Abstraction' - an exciting new exhibition in Prague maps the correlation between Czech book jacket design and painting, photography, & sculpture
In today's edition of the Arts: we look at a new exhibition that has opened at Prague's famous Riding School Gallery, a part of the Prague Castle complex. The show, called 'Art is Abstraction' features modern works by some of the most important Czech artists of the late 20th century, including Jiri Balcar, Vladimir Boudnik, Vladimir Preclik, and Dana Puchnarova, to name but a very few of the many represented. The driving force behind the exhibition: the fact that Czech artists in 1950s and 60s Socialist Czechoslovakia turned to the book jacket as a medium for abstract work - especially in the early years abstract art was banned by the regime. Curator of the exhibition, art historian Zdenek Primus, collected hundreds of unusual and rare publications throughout the 90s, before it occurred to him to prepare an exhibit showing the correlation between the book jacket and various mediums of artists in their prime: the book jacket vs. the painting, the photograph, the 3-dimensional sculpture. On display: more than 100 artworks, 150 photographs, and 500 books...
Today it is difficult to imagine the arts scene in Communist Czechoslovakia in the late 1950s: Socialist Realism was the only officially-acceptable style, it was a period when art students were thrown out of the art academies, or even interrogated, for abstract art work, considered subversive to the regime, which of course it was: a thriving, vibrant, extremely important counter-culture that kept real art in Czechoslovakia alive. Though the 60s would experience a thaw that led to the Prague Spring, earlier the Communists tried their best to stamp the abstract movement out, though ultimately they were never able to suppress it - it just went deeper underground. Exhibitions of any worth were held clandestinely in peoples' homes, sometimes for as little as one day. Interestingly, artists eventually found another means of both making a living and publicly displaying and spreading knowledge of their work: the answer came in the form of the book jacket, says 'Art is Abstraction' curator Zdenek Primus:
"At the end of the 1950s the artists represented at this exhibition, young men and women then, were not able to display their work. Since they couldn't sell their work, they at least began earning some money by putting forth proposals for book covers. They poured similar intensity and similar elements found in their paintings and sculptures into book jacket designs, which gave the jackets incredibly high quality."
The abstract book jackets designed by members of Czechoslovakia's most prominent avant garde were something the art historian rediscovered in the 90s...
"I have always loved books and I have always visited antique bookshops - it was there that I came upon book covers that were clearly abstract and clearly extraordinary. I was immediately fascinated, and given that I had always written about books in the past, I told myself I would put together a collection, then wait and see what happened, whether it would inspire me to write something, create a catalogue, or ultimately, an exhibition. The more I collected the more evident it became that much of the material was excellent, and I decided to go ahead with the exhibit. One of the intentions I had early on was to 'confront' the book covers with the rest of the artists' works, so that all could be fit into context and compared. In the end, in this way, abstract art in the late 50s throughout the 60s became quite wide-spread. It wasn't written about, in a way it went unnoticed by many, perhaps it wasn't allowed to be written about. But, the point is, it was there."
Confronting many of the designs of the books with some major works is one of the main joys of 'Art is Abstraction'. Some of the books are displayed in balanced formation in glass cases, but many are also hung on the walls next to paintings, sometimes providing direct analogies between a particular work. Such is the case between one of the first pieces visitors see at the show, a painting by Jan Kotik:
"This painting serves as a good example how the artist worked in the different mediums. This painting is from 1959 and could be described as 'blue painting with yellow elements'. Next to it we see a book published a year earlier as part of Expo '58, called 'The Adventure of Man and Machines', about Czech industry. There we see the exact opposite: a yellow background, with blue elements. When you look at both art works, I stress both are works of art, then you can see both have identical morphology, just cast in different colours. That's what this exhibition is about. This is a perfect example of the connection of the artist's work through different mediums."
This sometimes playful, but always important connection between elements through mediums is one that the viewer returns to continually throughout the show, contemplating the similarities and differences between the book covers displaying abstract shapes and forms, some simple, some geometric, others more loose, darker, more expressionistic. Still, it is not a comparison that needs to be followed slavishly - and it has to be said that gradually the books recede somewhat as one focuses on the more imposing works that hang on the walls. The books, in a way, are your chance to have your own small Snajdr, DeMartini, Kubicek or Bostik, but the fact is they serve as kind of prelude, they are something of an echo to the true power that is unleashed by a full canvas, a 3-dimensional hanging sculpture, or a rich, textured black and white photograph, that go further in shifting our ways of seeing the world. A case in point is the exhibition's banner piece 'Plastic Red Structure' by Zdenek Sykora - a geometric three dimensional hanging work that is formed of hundreds of little cubes lined side by side, each at proportionately different angles.
"Sykora, whose work is on the poster, on the invitations, was the first in Czechoslovakia to begin using a computer to help him in his work. He was able to calculate that none of the numerous structures you see on the surface ever repeat themselves, or if they do, then that they repeat themselves exactly the way he wanted. That was very, very modern for the period, and he's continued working in this manner ever since."
Then there's the work of Vladimir Boudnik, one of the most renowned printmakers of the 1960s, who used non-art materials - metal scraps, nails, and other odds and ends to create matrixes for prints he would later modify with single tone colours, he created a unique scratchy, pockmarked style, that look like scrap metal industrial plates one might find at the end of the earth, from a civilisation long ago. A faded blue field sets a quiet and moody tone.
"Everything started with Czech Informel - that means this kind of dark, moody structural abstraction, Vladimir Boudnik was an important example. The abstract movement then gradually evolved, we had lyrical abstraction, kinetic movements, New Sensitivity, and at the end of the 1960s: the use of a completely white surface, a kind of deliverance, being set free."
An exhibition that strives to be definitive of Czech 1960s visual culture, one that points out the creative link between book jacket design and artists' main mediums would not be complete without an accompanying monograph. The book published in this case is a beautiful one indeed. Bound in a cloth cover that features a reproduction of Zdenek Sykora's Plastic Red Structure, the monograph for 'Art is Abstraction' has an unsurpassed quality of reproductions, sharp in colour, texture, and plasticity. The works practically "pulse" on the page. Also, the period is mapped out with great attention, with accompanying text for each and every catalogued artist. Definitely worth having a look at if you see the show, or especially if you don't - the book is published by Kant publishers and is available in Czech, German, and English.
But, if you don't get your hands on a copy or can't make it the exhibit you might at least want to take inspiration from art historian Zdenek Primus in his hobby of hitting antiquarian shops in search of further gems like the ones that inspired his latest exhibition...
"I think that for a modern person checking out old, antique bookstores is one of the last great adventures we can have in the city. I got a lot out of it. Whenever I find something worthwhile, it doesn't matter if it cost 15 crowns or 500, it's a discovery for me, and if it captures say, an original way of seeing from the 1960s, than it makes me incredibly happy. I am convinced that in a few years, that over the next few years I will be able to find new books, perhaps for new projects. It happened to me even in western Europe, as well as the US, when I was preparing an exhibition and monograph on Pop Art in books and catalogues. It's possible to find all those things, it's still possible to find them here."
