Juraj Meliš — Idea „A“

The object Idea “A” comes from a large cycle that is developed by the author around the mid-1970’s as a social exploration of the society at the time. He reacts to the contemporary political situation that occurred after the year 1968, after the forced occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops when the representatives of the totalitarian regime returned to the methods of repression of politicians, intellectuals and artists that became  symbols of the political liberalization of the 1960’s. In this series, the author reacts to the transition from liberalizing of the society back to Communist dictatorship, he thematises personal lack of freedom, limiting existence, the feeling of threat of self, but also human being itself. The author’s starting point is the term idea, and uses it in such a way that he models the word with a metal wire that is symbolically but also literally nailed to the wooden body of the object. During 1980’s, he begins to use this theme in prints as well, most often in cycles of serigraphs. His interest in naming the feeling of lack of freedom of the time culminated into the monumental object Great Censor (1980).

Juraj Meliš finished his sculpture studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava in the studio of Prof. Jozef Kostka. He had his first solo exhibition in 1970 in Youth Gallery in Bratislava, where he introduced wooden sculptures presented as a stylised village environment. Since the beginning, his work touched various media. From sculpture, he moved on to object-making and complex visual environments. His second solo exhibition Environment II. In 1971 also had this character, and there he thematised the problematics of ecology and the consequences of human aggressive behaviour towards nature. The third from the series of exhibitions Environment III, thanks to the intervention of the party did not take place at all. Until 1989, Juraj Meliš took part in the exhibitions and events of the unofficial art scene. In the long term, he reflects the current society and articulates the questions related to personal identity, while a strong role is played by the motive of face or death mask and the genre of self-portrait.