neometachaos - neometatelepathy

opening 15th February 2012 at 6 pm

Within the extensive list of the Czech artist Václav Stratil's
exhibitions, there is only one reference, although not very exact, to
his solo show in Slovakia. The exhibition was supposed to take place
at the cultural center Trnávka in Bratislava, most probably in 1985.
The date of the exhibition (though questionable) seems to indicate two
facts - first, Stratil's activity within the Czechoslovak cultural
scene has been undermined by his status as an artist belonging to the
"unofficial scene", the history of which has not been written down in
detail yet, and second, Stratil's "reach" to Slovakia remains more
mediated than direct, thus the artist is still, above all, a "Czech
phenomenon".

With regard to both facts, the exhibition "Neometachaos /
neometatelepatie" was conceived in a way that it would both comprise
of retrospective elements and introduce the creative range of this
immensely productive and versatile painter, draughtsman and performer
within the modest space of amt_project and under significant pressure
to use an ascetic approach to selecting the works.

Václav Stratil can be included among the most influential
personalities of the Czech art scene of the last thirty years. A year
ago his status has also been acknowledged by the Award from Lukáš
Jasanský and Martin Polák, an award given out by young artists,
curators and theorists to the representatives of the middle and older
generation of artist. Following the tradition of renaming the award
after its laureate, it has been passed on, as the Award from Václav
Stratil, to the conceptual artist Dalibor Chatrný towards the end of
2011.

In any case, "the Stratil Phenomenon" does not become depleted by the
Lifetime Contribution Award (though said award is supposed to pay
respect to the current inspirational qualities of specific artists'
work), on the contrary it is propelled by constant, feverish activity,
and by an ongoing exploration of possible modes of visual
representation. After the rationally allocated series of the nineties,
Stratil's work gradually evolved into parallel work on various
projects including intuitively/reactively-made paintings, ongoing
series of photographic self-portraits and contemplative drawings.
Especially since 2003, when he returned to painting after
experimenting with the deconstruction of the hanging canvas, Stratil
became driven by a strong conviction in "a personal post-historicity",
free from the demands of his surroundings, but neither carrying the
signs of social escapism nor a loss of contact with the present. The
dispersal in Stratil's practice does not express his loss of awareness
of a centre, but with regard to his total immersion into the
introspective research of "the Self" and of the identities enclosed
within, it leads to an exploration of the manners of artistic
expression in all the disciplines utilized by him. This pluralistic
approach includes a controlled build-up of the series, as well as
headless punk excess; clear-cutness and banality; robust baroque;
expression and minimalist reduction; explicit absorption of modern art
stimuli along with factual (and sometimes criminal) appropriation of
the works of others; recycling of personal history (rediscovery of his
own artistic positions and re-grasping them in a new context); but
also lyricism and sentimentality in somewhat unstable ties to the
excited spirituality and (self)destructive tendencies. The layered
dynamic of Stratil's work is determined by the performative background
of his entire practice, and by the artist's demonstrated inspiration
by the creative aspects of the dada modus operandi, perhaps the only
ones that are able to avoid the threatening impotence of the cultural
mainstream.

Jiří ptáček