‘Simple objects on the painter’s worktable, canvases leaning against the studio wall, often just the table itself, an open window, the door leading to the corridor, the interior of the studio, a quiet corner of it. Seated or standing figures in the studio. The things I’m surrounded by inspire me and are witness to my work.’

Svatopluk Slovenčík, The Artist About His Work, 1984

 

Svatopluk Slovenčík (1934–1999) was a painter, draughtsman and teacher for whom a lifetime and spiritual bond with the south-east Moravian city of Zlín had defining significance. Zlín’s unique Functionalist urban planning, a realisation of the Baťa Company vision, became a kind of all-pervading muse for him. Slovenčík was an artist with a keen intellect, who, in addition to a thorough knowledge of art history and contemporary art, possessed an exceptional ability to think critically – both about himself and the world around him. During the era of Communist totalitarianism and later, after the return to democracy of 1989, Slovenčík strictly forged his own path – both in the sense of uncompromising artistic originality and in his consciously chosen independence from high-profile centres of cultural developments and group activity.

Slovenčík’s oeuvre encompasses a wide range of techniques, from painting and drawing to collage and spatial works. This diverse body of work reflects the ‘mental laboratory’ in which, on the basis of clearly defined thematic cycles, he continually developed and refined his creative vision. His artistic approach can be understood as the systematic process of observing and exploring objective reality around him: for Slovenčík, the still life, studio setting or section of the urban landscape becomes a focal point for inner reflections on ‘the planes of existence’.

Slovenčík’s exhibition at GASK places special emphasis on his work on paper (drawings, collages) from the 1980s and 1990s that most clearly manifest his ‘source trinity’: space, rhythm and shape. The installation of the exhibition reflects the artist’s conceptually rigorous approach expressed through specific cycles and the inwardly connected nature of his work as a whole. In a sequence of selected cycles (Drawers, Building Elements, Spatial Compositions, Black Interiors, large-format collages, large-format paintings on paper, Streets, Graves – Mourning, Fibre-cement Boards, Stairs, Interiors, Neons, Monochromes, Shapes – Pears) we can see how Slovenčík’s visual language is characterised by a unique synthesis formed between two opposite poles: on the one hand, we observe constructive rationality, on the other, an almost elementally spontaneous expressiveness. The distinctly monochromatic (though also black-and-white) character of the exhibition testifies to Slovenčík’s understanding of the structural essence of all things, in which even immaterial phenomena such as light and shadow can be used to build the pictorial composition.

Although a recognised figure of Zlín’s cultural identity, Slovenčík and his artistic legacy have remained relatively marginal within the broader perception of Czech art of the last decades. Marking the ninetieth anniversary of Slovenčík’s birth and the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, the exhibition Field of Presence and the new monograph The Silence of the Studio aim to rectify this situation.