The Wordless exhibition by BURN-IN artist Ladislav Černý at the Nitra Synagogue references the atrocities of World War 2.
His powerful works (painting, sculpture and installations), created between 2008 and 2022, make a strong artistic statement and correspond perfectly with the spiritual atmosphere of the sacred space.
On two floors, the artist addresses negatives from the past and present. In the central work Nemesis, countless empty cartridge cases symbolize the millions of victims of the Holocaust. The title says it all and needs no further words. Intuitively, the viewer grasps the horrors of this time.
Gallery owner Sonja Dolzer visited together with Lukas and Alba this important exhibition in an incomparable setting and congratulates Ladislav Černý on this successful highlight.
The exhibition in Nitra runs until 29.3.2023.
WITHOUT WORDS, but with respect, I enter the threshold of the Nitra Synagogue, built between 1909 and 1911 by architect Lipót Baumhorn.
In this interior, the artist Ladislav Černý has inserted his works of art - painting, sculpture and installation art (2008 - 2022) - which continuously correspond with this spiritual atmosphere.
The exhibition is entitled Without Words and in fact it does not need words. Černýs artistic statement is a memento and at the same time a warning against the apocalyptic realities that humanity has experienced.
The artistic profile of painter, sculptor and restorer Ladislav Černý (1965), a figure of the middle generation of artists, began to form at the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Bratislava (SUPS 1981 - 1985), the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava (1/1/U 1985 - 1986) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden (HFBK Dresden 1987 - 1991).
He graduated in 1991 with the degree of Master of Arts, academically certified restorer. He works as a restorer in Slovakia and Austria.
In addition to restoration, the artist is almost continuously engaged in painting. His work can be divided into several artistic cycles. The dominant one is figurative painting, in which he gradually (since 1997) broke away from abstract artistic expression and turned to an expressive handwritten statement. His chamber painting was dominated by works of new figuration, against the background of which he dealt with relational situations as he himself experienced them. Through these works he sought to bear witness to his own reflections, which almost all of us deal with - on life, love and death. However, in his work he also deals with intimate situations and moments between man and woman. They do not resonate vulgarly, but provide impulses for reflection. His multi-figure compositions contain a dynamic charge of drama.
In the field of portraiture, the artist initially worked with a realistic style of painting, in which he was able to capture the psychology of the portrayed model. By gradually abstracting the realistic elements, he created an anonymous portrait of the portrayed model, in which the characteristic gestural features of his personality were not absent in the modeling.
Examples of this are his figurative compositions and heads, in which he breaks away from the image and turns to the reduction of form. The artist wants to be as personal and strongly emotional as possible. With a lot of expressiveness he paints heads that are timeless in their own way. Mostly they are heads with faces that stand out from the background. They are disturbing, they seem like frightening existential phantoms. The artist's heads and faces are characterized by the question: What are they thinking, what are they feeling, what are they experiencing, what is happening to them? In this conception, the painter's heads have a testimonial value for the human destiny. The precursors of this kind of painting were, for example, Francis Bacon (1909 - 1992) or Georges Rouault (1871-1958).
Ladislav Černý has created his own emotional exploration of the environment surrounding him, of the moments he happens to encounter. He translates the experienced sensation into his own thinking, restructures it and frees it from unnecessary meaning and conceptual categories. He has evolved from abstraction to expressive structured painting, in which he uses strong expressive means, both the latest and the prefabricated.
The robust pastoral nature of the artist's artistic expression is underscored by a contrasting, dense color palette that literally overwhelms the viewer. The archetype in his work is an important attribute of his artistic presentation and in the context of the work it appears natural, natural and human. Černý's works thus acquire a meditative dimension - they suggest and compel reflection.
It can be said that Ladislav Černý's work emerges from within itself, in an attempt to make contact with the perceiver. In his paintings, the artist consciously builds his artistic program, convincing us of the constant progress, but above all, the subjects, the plot and the content of the work.
Ladislav Černý is currently one of the top artists in Slovak art. In painting or sculpture he conveys his emotional messages woven from quotations mixed with his own cultural dimensions. Cerny is not interested in a pleasing aesthetic presentation, but in exposing the contemporary negatives of the times. An example is the object "Peace Dove" - a bleeding dove - bleeding Europe and the world. In the Central European context, during presentations in London, Strasbourg, Vienna, Warsaw...his work received a positive assessment in painting, where the medium of color is an important phenomenon. In addition, he gained recognition in the field of sculpture and installation art.
He is a member of several Slovak art associations and has presented his painting and sculpture not only in Slovakia, but also abroad in Austria, Great Britain, Hungary, Germany, France, Poland and the Czech Republic. The author lives and works in Ivanka pri Dunaji.