ANTONÍN MÁLEK

Unity in Diversity / Jan Kříž

The welcome presence of the “post-occupation” globetrotter Antonín Málek on the Czech stage of graphic art reminds us of the fact that his work has by a considerable margin not been given as much national attention as it would deserve. There are whole series of work by him that we hardly know, which relates not only to the period of his emigration and his ongoing stays in Western Europe and worldwide, but also to the times of his studies in Prague and his activities within the development of Czech structural abstraction at the beginning of the 1960s. In the course of time his work richly, and even unexpectedly ramified. He follows a number of parallel subjects that should be given attention both separately and in a holistic way, with hard effort made to understand Málek’s work as a testimony of a conspicuous and most independent personality of graphic art. As time passes, and as we become more familiar with the character and the development of local and international trends at home, we feel more and more attracted by the very specific contribution of this author, of the features making him different, even though his work may be justly classified within the development context of the period.

The diversification of Málek’s artistic thought attracts us as a document of a general tendency within the contemporary art, doubtlessly dissipated in a plurality of directions that are often incompatible as to style. The profile of this outstanding creative personality appears repeatedly as a certain unity in diversity, rather than a fixed monolith following one direction and one idea. The courage to take up the risk of contrasts and discrepancies does not appear as a phenomenon of the times only, being akin to the whole spectrum of present day art, but also as a means to arouse the interest of the cultural public by expressing intrinsic and external conflicts of the creative programme. The farewells, the refusals, the comebacks, the acknowledgements and new updating of the starting points, the cohesion of the past, present, and future, all that sounds to be most topical. The metaphysics of the radical structural symbolism of the 1960s as well as Málek’s descriptive realism of more recent times have a quite justified claim to be acknowledged as a certain general cultural value.

As early as in his Indian-ink drawings from the turn of the 1950s and the 1960s Antonín Málek’s profile was one of a strong personality. Following in the expressive trends that were typical for the Czech way to cubism, Antonín Málek made a successful attempt to combine some particular parts of the Czech landscape with a relatively independent formal synthesis, searching for deep-minded symbolism. Neither side is seen to prevail; both are joined in drawings that are emotionally and intellectually deeply impressive. The dark meditative drawings are not just one stage on a path to abstraction, but superb key signatures in a principal, and in this sense also permanent, rooting of the author’s production in the world of real perceptions and fateful events of life.

The impact of early Málek drawings is so intensive from our present day view that we can not help appreciating the fact that in spite of his own excellent results Málek joined in and took the lead within the endeavours of opinionrelated young people, by the end of the 1950s, and namely those who saw the symbolics of formally autonomous graphic and material textures and structures as a means for an utterly authentic, artistic expression and testimony, with enough responsibility to the ego and to the contemporary period of time. In 1960 Antonín Málek is coauthor of two historical Confrontations. They took place within the unofficial intimacy of the Prague atelier of Jiří Valenta and Aleš Veselý, as imposed by the regime. The impulses of graphics by Vladimír Boudník, the works of Mikuláš Medek and Josef Istler, together with the search of the young generation, led to the establishment of the “Czech School of Structural Abstraction” where Antonín Málek also left his fingerprints. Only today have we begun to realize how very closely Málek with his friends focusing upon symbolical abstraction were related to the parallel development in our neighbouring Austria (that was inaccessible during those times). Over there – still producing half-gestural, half-structural paintings – they were working upon the same existential, religiously and mystically motivated symbolism as the young painters in Prague. Globally known names, such as Hermann Nitch, Otto Muehl, Günter Brus and others, can document the value of the works of the young Czech structural school, while illustrating the specific character of material mysteries of the Central European spirit. In this respect Málek’s works range among the most convincing ones.

You Are Observed / Mahulena Nešlehová

The place of Antonín Málek in the Czech landscape of graphic art remained vacant after he went into exile in autumn 1968. In the course of the so-called “normalisation period” his name was almost left to oblivion. The awareness of his personality, though, was kept alive among the painter’s friends and in a narrow circle of his peers from the unofficial “Confrontations” of 1960.

After the beginning of the 1960s, when his works used to be included in exhibitions of contemporary art (in Prague, Brno, Rychnov nad Kněžnou and Ústí nad Orlicí), we were given the chance of meeting Málek’s production only as late as 1991, at the exhibition of the Czech Informel organized by the Metropolitan Gallery Prague (Galerie hlavního města Prahy). The radical form of “abstraction”, encompassing his years 1960–1964, represents one of the highlights of his development, as shown by all his works at that particular exhibition. Together with Koblasa, Veselý, Sion, Tomalík, Beran and others he was part of the progressive wing the youngest generation, participating in the formulation of its artistic opinion. These days, after almost 25 years spent in Sweden and Germany, he has decided to organise an exhibition of the project entitled You Are Observed at Jindřichův Hradec where he grew up and where he likes to return to. The motives of the large format pictures of 15 faces – masks are related to the idea of injured and distorted humanity with which Antonín Málek was repeatedly confronted during his exile work. The memento of protecting humanity in this concept ushers us into situations threatening the emotional substance of Man.

The fiction of “being looked upon”, and constantly exposed to psychological pressure due to such observation that also leads to distortions, is based upon Málek’s life experience that was initiated in this country during the totalitarian regime. At a certain distance, and even with some sort of ironising zest, he returns to his experience in order to remind us of these issues from the perspective of the new humanism of the present day.

Actually, we should return back to the threshold of the 1960s in order to understand the artist’s intention. The expression of existentional anxiety in the nucleus of the project, namely, finds already its second genesis in Málek’s work. At the turn of the 1950s and 1960s it was reflected by informal structures of assembly-type images – objects. In their monochromous ascetically temperate relief structure, destructed by diversified tools and based upon all sorts of mass substances and untraditional material (sands, sheet metal, jute etc.), we were able to witness the permeation of two spheres: the domain of personal existentional experience, as manifested by the act of direct interventions into the surface of the work, on the one hand side, and the level of general meaning encoded in the language of hidden symbols, on the other hand. The well-done example in this sense was his series entitled What is inside (To, co je uvnitř of 1964–1965). This can serve as a division line in the development of the author’s production. It was also represented by numerous items in Málek’s independent exhibition at the Karlovo náměstí Gallery, former hall of Lidová demokracie in 1968. That was the first, and also the only independent exhibition before he left this country.

I mention this particular exhibition on purpose. In addition to the series of objects “What is inside” it demonstrated works that were linked by their morphology with the line of the newly topicalised imaginative art that became a certain way out of the malaise of amorphous masses of structural abstraction in the mid-sixties, caught in the trap of petrification in the Czech lands of those times. A stimulus of new orientation for quite a number of the young advocates of “abstraction” seems to have been its frequent symbolical second meaning, opening up enough room for free phantasy. The burden of life perception was also quite frequently transposed and materialised by martyrized corporal elements.

In the mid-sixties Antonín Málek also set out in this direction. The entanglement of biomorphous tissues, of which areas of eyes, outlines of heads, morsels of internal organs were born, and all that was intersected by lines of geometrical symbols, brought the beginnings of his return to figurative painting and to reality. At those times he also started to conceive the thematic circle of his next journey. It was introduced by the portrait of Samuel Beckett (1967–1968). Also this picture was part of Málek’s exhibition, accompanied by a set of five portrait drawings in Indian ink.

The commencing step was a successful one. Beckett’s head, conceived in a large scale, whose simplified abbreviation captured the characteristic features of the writer’s face, however, was more than just a portrait of the famous man. It became a symbol of human straight-forwardness and decidedness. As a majestic shield protecting the intrinsic feeling of a person, it cut through the geometrical network of permeating imaginary spaces. It was approaching as a sort of memento, in order to fill the whole image area of the spacious canvass with its presence, transgressing any limitations of room.

From Jindřichův Hradec around the World (almost)… / Charlotta Kotik

Light in Ladakh, a mystical place high in the mountains of the Himalayas, is intensely bright. It delineates every feature of the landscape, natural or man made alike, by a sharp outline, as if the formation was chiseled from the rock. In this harsh, hard edged world of intense beauty our reading of the vast distances is also effected by this penetrating light that suspends the accustomed reading of perspective and of the interplay of background and foreground. One is reminded of the atmosphere in Surrealist paintings or the carefully calibrated lighting in the recent Sci-Fi movies. Landscape itself is dominated by monasteries perched on the cliffs overlooking the low laying areas. All aspects of life of the province are governed from these imposing buildings.

When Tonda Málek came to Ladakh he was smitten by the inherent spirituality of the place that is inextricably woven into the fabric of the everyday. He came as a resident artist with the members of the Save Alchi group established to protect and restore the ancient monastery of the same name. When Ladakh region was discovered as a tourist spot in 1974 it also became pray to the developers. Being one of the highest and most arid inhabited place on earth its ecology is extremely fragile. Any abrupt change can have devastating consequences and groups, such as the Save Alchi program were created to try to reverse the tide.

Málek who is an insatiable traveler, became fascinated by this place. He soon realized he could not capture the visual aspects of this territory nor comprehend its spiritual underpinnings in one visit – he has returned ten times since his first visit, and he is planning a trip for this winter.

The year 1993, when Málek began his travels to Ladakh, was also a year when Ladakh obtained a semiautonomous status from the central Indian government. Set deep in Himalayas, on the western edge of the Tibetan Plateau Ladakh is also called Little Tibet. Being under the Indian government its heritage was spared the destructions that afflicted many other parts of Tibet. Buddhist monasteries, with buildings dating back to 12th or 11th centuries, feature walls adorned by the richly colored frescoes and display a multitude of statuary. Their strong colors attracted Málek’s attention and are being echoed in some of the paintings. Málek is intrigued not only by art but also by the lifestyle and customs of the indigenous population. However he decided not to include any figurative motives in his Ladakh work so as to avoid the ethnographic romantization of the “natives”.

It is the architecture and its seamless placement in the mountainous environment that fascinates Málek the most. He does not, however, produce the true to life rendering of the landscape. Rather he takes liberties with the visual reality to express the unique character of the place. In the largest of the paintings, the depiction of the castle in Leh, Málek alters the natural configuration of the mountains to accentuate the monumentality of the castle. The images of the landscape are not therefore literal translations of the existing situation. Artist himself see them as indirect “portraits” of the depicted territory.

This attest to Málek’s long standing interest in portraiture. He created many outstanding works in this genre before his involvement with the Informel in the early 1960s and reaffirmed his interest in the portrait of Samuel Beckett of 1967–1969.

In many cases Málek combined the truthful likeness of the sitter with the unexpected rendition of the background that frames the figure. Portrait of Mrs. Gross, 1981–1982, presents a sensitive study of an older woman painted with the extensive use of yellow and shades of blue. The quiet contemplative mood of this picture is strengthened by the centrality of the book held by the sitter.

Malek’s new confrontations / Hana Dobešová

The name of the Czech painter Antonín Málek was more famous on the European and American art scenes than it was at home for a long time. In the Czech Lands, it was known to only a handful of art professionals and a narrow circle of friends and colleagues of the same generation. Málek belongs to the circle of Czech exile artists, a claim put forward in professional literature – and in it, only in the past few years we could have read about how distinctive a mark this painter made on the development of Czech art of the 1960s. At that time he, along with several other artists, belonged to the group of artists who organised the unofficial exhibitions “Confrontations”, being one of the representatives of the Czech Informal Art movement.

Antonín Málek, an academic painter, was born in 1937 in Plzeň, but grew up in Jindřichův Hradec, where he still returns to visit to this day. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. From the beginning of the 1960s, still during the time of his studies, Málek’s work was classified among the most up-to-date art trends both in Prague and abroad. Málek, along with other members of the youngest and very progressive art generation, was also one of the first organisers of two illegal exhibitions, held in the studios of Prague artists. These two events, later known as “Confrontations I” and “Confrontations II”, were in fact one of the triggers that lead to the so-called Prague Spring of 1968. The members of the “Confrontations” art group took their own path outside the official art scene governed by the Social Realism movement. These young artists worked in the spirit of the global and European Informal Art movement – and their links to Tapies, Alberto Burri, Dubuffet or Pollock are rather obvious.

Approximately from the mid-1960s onwards, signs of a figure, a head, of human body parts and tissues began to appear in Málek’s abstract works, for the artist gradually lost satisfaction in creating random configurations of objects in his assamblages and Informal structures. At this point in time, Málek found it too easy to make use of the autenticity of various masses and materials – sands, wires, metal parts or fabrics – which he would incorporate into his objects in which the material itself was the bearer of meaning and the subject of expression. Although it has become apparent with time that Málek’s abstract works are his ultimate achievements, the artist began to break away from Abstract movement, returning more and more often to the human figure. His work proceeded to another stage. The peak of this period is a large suggestive Portrait of Samuel Beckett, presented at Málek’s individual exhibition in Prague in 1968, his first and also the last one-man show organised before the artist left his home country – Málek emigrated shortly after the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

In his Swedish exile, after a short period of searching, Málek soon rediscovered the continuity with his preemigration works (Portrait of Samuel Beckett). His work from this period is dominated by figural themes in which Málek emphasises the psychological aspect of the message. The author’s intention and urgent need to deal with the human psyche gave birth to numerous figural compositions. Many of these, along with Málek’s later works, have a political subtext (The Ideologists). His portraits from this time belong to his most convincing paintings. The expressively deformed proportions and shapes presented in dramatically accentuated details underline the character of the persons depicted and testify to the artist’s inner relation to the models. Examples of this approach are the Portrait of Anastáz Opasek, i.e. the archabbot of the Břevnov Monastery in Prague (1988); Portrait of Mother (1992–1995); or the painting entitled The Last Cigarette (1987–1990). Gradually, concrete themes begin to appear in Málek’s work: a head, a mask, a dialogue, an artist’s monologue with himself reflected in the mirror, a moment of jeopardy. An interest in human fate, his own introspection, existential feelings – all that led the author to create works with a generally valid message (Longing for an Echo, 1990; a cycle of paintings called You Are Observed, 1991–1992).

What shall I write? / Frank Meyer

“I don’t know. Anything!” said Tonda Malek, when I asked him what I should write for this book. I’m an actor, not an art critic.

In 1984 I had asked him for an article, about his “King Ubu” set design, to put in the programme for the theatre production. A week passed, then a call came: “What shall I write? I’m a painter!”

This led to a really long conversation: he spoke about the curse of deadlines and the difficulties he’d had – really he was talking about what he felt he hadn’t managed and what we wanted to do better. I asked what idea he’d started from, what kind of concept? (I know artists who could happily write tomes on the subject!) Tonda replied slowly: “Well, I aim to provide the actors with a range of possibilities.” Full stop. Typical of Tonda.

Well, in “Ubu” we achieved the impossible with what Malek created for us, which was a whole world of props, stage set and costumes – everything. Apart from our bare bodies, everything was a Tonda creation! And all of it was strong and decisive. Despite this (and because of it) we then had the freedom to breathe life into the performance. We could live in the world of Malek’s images. A rare opportunity.

Mind you, this could have been a scary prospect. When I first met Tonda Malek 30 years ago, he was a portrait artist. In particular, his paintings of people’s faces left a great impression on me, they made me feel uneasy. Trying to catch the right look, from the right distance, I felt and still feel that the portraits keep me at a distance and draw me in at the same time. The idea of disappearing into one of his portraits is not always a pleasant one, more of a nightmare.

Antonín Málek’s Landscape of the Soul

It is not easy to be brief in addressing the work of Antonín Málek (1937). His corpus of work is so impressive, his path through life so intricate that an extended and ardent discourse, together with numerous interpretations, is hard to resist. Among Czech art historians who have concentrated upon Málek’s work are Mahulena Nešlehová, Hana Dobešová, Jan Kříž, Vlastimil Tetiva and Charlotta Kotíková, active in New York. Many of them have become his close friends, personally involved with his art and life.

Antonín Málek is one of the Czech artists who have left their homeland to pursue work abroad, in exile. He spent some years in Sweden and Germany, where his work merged spontaneously into local art milieus, was exhibited at a number of solo and group shows and received many prizes. How much energy does it take for a person to hold out and cope with the burden of uncertainty in exile? And how much effort does it take to maintain one’s inner continuity, so that ideas and views may be developed in a new environment with the same degree of concentration as before?

Málek left Czechoslovakia in 1968, equipped with considerable artistic and intellectual experience. His studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague (1957-1963) had enabled him to contrast his work with that of other artists and provided him with a theoretical base, while an important part had been played by his friendship, dating from the late 1950’s, with the artists around Jan Koblasa. This was rooted in respect for high standards of quality in art, as well as in an affinity of style. The artists would meet in Mikuláš Medek’s studio; Málek also became acquainted with the older generation of artists (V. Boudník, J. Istler, J. Kolář) and art theoreticians (F. Šmejkal, B. Mráz, A. Hartmann, V. Linhartová, J. Kříž and D. Veselý). The group shared an interest in existentialist literature (Franz Kafka, L. Klíma, Albert Camus), Samuel Beckett’s absurd drama and modern classical and experimental music (Janáček, Martinů, Schönberg, Berg, Webern, Boulese, Stockhausen, Cage) and free jazz (Ornette Coleman, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane). His artistic experience also included participation in the non-public Confrontations shows (1960), now-legendary, that lent significant emphasis to Málek’s artistic orientation.

Antonín Málek’s work before emigration was thus in line with the non-mainstream (‘unofficial’) Czech art of the 1960’s, as represented by Zdeněk Beran, Eva and Čestmír Janošek, Jan Koblasa, Pavel Nešleha, Zbyšek Sion, Antonín Tomalík, Jiří Valenta, Aleš Veselý, Karel Nepraš and others, all of whom were attempting to pick up the threads of Czech art as it had been before the Second World War. In the late 1950’s an interest in the human figure and portraiture came to the forefront of Málek’s oeuvre. The figure also appeared frequently in his drawings and prints, where it was coded into hidden symbols and reductions, sometimes approached as details of the human body (eye, knee, buttocks). The figure is also present in the artist’s informel material pictures, especially the vertical ones, in which the volume is concentrated around a central slit. This scar-like element refers to more than the physical; it indicates the person as a spiritual being with a deeply hidden but vulnerable soul.