Chatrný Dalibor 1925–2012
Thumbs, 1974
mixed media, canvas, 149 × 99 cm, signed on the reverse in pencil bottom left D. Chatrný 74
Space was an important lifelong element in Chatrný's work.
theme that he returned to repeatedly at various stages of his creative life
and related to it in various ways. At the turn of the 1960s
the 1960s and 1970s, it was the spatial works with ropes that connected
the surface of the painting with the outer space. Delineating, defining and creating
spatial situations was realized by Chatrný in his own studio, or
on unique exhibition occasions, such as the Eight Hour
exhibition at the Brno House of Art in 1970, but also through
drawing works in which he explored the possibilities of the aleatory situation of the line -
cords in relation to given properties of space - this time in an interior
scheme. These works were followed up in the early 1970s
a series of conceptual drawing projects that thematized certain
spatial situations and relationships, correlations of space, interiors, cubes,
applying or going beyond the classical linear perspective. These
conceptual projects, mostly realized only in the form of drawing or
design, corresponded both to the international conceptual movement and to the
the social situation in the then Czechoslovakia with the onset of normalization
of the early 1970s, which made it difficult or completely limited the exhibition
opportunities. For Chatrný, as for many other artists, the
drawings and projects could represent a mental exercise and development of imagination,
that were not bound by external constraints - they provided a free space. Many of these projects were published in small offset
editions and sent to friends, artists and theorists who replaced
exhibition re exhibitions of the works. Chatrný himself says: "The first projects were still
feasible, the next ones allowed me to think much more freely:
Correlation of Space, Spatial Deformations, Quasispaces, Corners, Ceiling Floors,
Projects for room painters, later Mirror Orientations or
Mirror Contexts, etc."
In addition to the drawing projects entitled Traces in Space, Space or Traces
Chatrný painted a parallel series of paintings that developed similar themes
in the medium of painting. In 1973-1974, the artist painted several paintings
with the same scheme of two identical architectural spatial
intersections, with different imprints of one
or two fingerprints that distort and disrupt the linear perspective of the scene
by a different reality. The use of a life-size thumbprint or
enlarged scale was repeatedly used by Chatrný in his work. According to
Jiří Valoch, Chatrný related the fingerprint to himself, but also
he was evaluating the visual and semantic quality of the trace of his own touch.
In the case of the records of space, there was an intermingling of two different
scales and realities-the silhouette of space and the surface impression, the geometric drawing
and the performative bodily gesture. By entering the work, he was confirming
Chatrný's own presence while connecting the real act of touch, thus connecting the outer and inner space of the work. By entering the work, he was affirming
Chatrný's own presence while connecting the real act of touching
with an illusory drawing, thus connecting the outer and inner space of the work.
Dalibor Chatrný's artistic work has been evolving since the 1950s.
century has developed in a plethora of creative approaches and chosen media
from drawing, graphics, painting, objects, installations, photographic interpretations,
projects that are difficult to classify in their many layers.
Although it is extremely diverse, it remains at the core of its content
coherent and integral. It undoubtedly reaches into the areas of conceptual
art exploring the relationship between word or gesture and image, land art,
experimental and abstract art, performance art, without
in his work we can define their boundaries precisely. Connecting
of Chatrný's work is the continuous creative invention and experimentation
with various techniques and artistic expressions in order to visualize
theoretical questions in the field of linguistics in a simple way,
phenomenology or natural physical phenomena. Although the work of Dalibor
Chatrný was mostly created in the local environment of Brno, in a closed
space of the then Czechoslovakia, it corresponded in its character
to the progressive and current tendencies of international artistic
conceptual and minimalist scene and represented work of comparable
quality. The original and authentic work of Dalibor Chatrný belongs to
to the most significant values of Czech art of the second half of the 20th century,
which is still awaiting its appropriate appretiation. Dalibor Chatrný (1925-2012), painter, conceptual artist and teacher
studied from 1945 at the Prague Pedagogical Faculty of the University of
Charles University and in 1949-1953 at the Academy of Fine Arts under Vladimír
Sychra and Vladimír Silovský. He lived in Brno, where from the late 1950s
He worked as a pedagogue at the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Brno in the 1990s.
In the 90s he taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the BUT and the Janáček Academy
Academy of Fine Arts. He was a member of several artistic groups, such as Profile
58, Parabola, Concretists Club and TT Club. He has received numerous awards, in the year
2000, such as the Michal Ranný Award for outstanding contribution to Czech
Fine Arts, in 2007 the Ministry of Culture Award and in
2011 Artist has a prize. His works are represented in major
institutional and private Czech and international collections.
42
auction 67
starting price
450 000 CZK
€ 18 200
hammer price
1 050 000 CZK