Igor Kalný — Untitled

The series called Bez názvu (Untitled) belongs to the cycle of interestingly structured geometrical ink drawings that Igor Kalný started to produce in 1984. Delineated horizontal and vertical lines creating regular rhythm form the elementary outline of his works. A lyrical structure of ink drawings, a dynamic and energetic author’s intervention, creates a counterpoint to the cold, impersonal and strict geometrical grids created with the help of a ruler. This spontaneous and expressive gesture bears an affinity with an organic element destabilizing and disquieting the austere delineated geometrical axis bringing life and movement in it. The clash of two principles: order and chaos are dominant here and they enter into a mutual communication. On one hand it seems as if the “live drawing” depended on the structure of lines on the other hand it can also be said that the organic element tries to free itself from the strict geometrical scheme. The author approaches drawing analytically, examines its possibilities and tests limits of the medium itself employing strategies built upon the lure of visual contradictions.

Igor Kalný emerged in the Slovak art scene at the turn of the 70s and 80s in 20^th century. He, however, did not follow with his contemporaries influenced by neoexpressionist tendencies of the emerging postmodernism. He was interested in the analytical tendencies exercised by a generationally older group of artists who formed the nucleus of the unofficial art scene, which he also became a part of. Drawing became the key medium in his work. He experimented with it and develoved its forms starting from using children’s stamps with animal prints, through structural drawings – colorful  or black and white lyrical pencil drawings – to retracing banal objects (glasses, hanger etc.) and eventually also his own body (so called Telovky, Bodies). His artistic signature includes the accumulation of presented motives as well as the manipulation with paper itself, which he deliberately crumples, tears or folds. He has also worked with language and print and music and poetry were integrated in his works as their inseparable part. He also did performance-art pieces. His works are playful, based on spontaneity and expressivity, however, they are also contemplative; they reflect on the world around him, political situation, and the lack of freedom, which he perceived as a burden in the period of normalization.