acts of insurgency -milan klic

Milan Klic

acts of insurgency

I was born and educated in former Czechoslovakia, today’s Czech Republic. At that time the country was a part of the communist block and all aspects of culture, visual arts in particular, were subject to political dogma and tough censorship. My natural inclination towards sculpture seemed unrealistic in such environment, desires had to be put aside, postponed, silenced and reduced to dreams. I chose Natural Sciences (math, computer science) as a practical survivor’s way. I graduated in 1974 from Palacky University, Olomouc with MS and began my career as computer programmer.

Mine is a story of an immigrant, of cultural fusion, ongoing, never complete.

But, dreams are weaving their fabric in their realm, spontaneously, beyond rational and practical considerations. As a way of spiritual survival, I was seeking expression in visual arts, first drawing and terra-cotta sculptures, then wood-carved, figurative ones.

Most of the early figures are now in various private collections in Europe, others here in US, reminders of a period of still evolving style. Several exhibitions in the old country were recognized and appreciated mostly by people tied to the subculture by similar

inner gravity.

As happens with totalitarian regimes, oppression spawns underground subculture where individuals live and create in seclusion, hiding from the society rather than seeking meaningful communication with others, except those who are in similar predicament – “internal emigrants”.

The conditions in former communist regime eventually led to emigration in 1985. Exposure to highly tech-nological, concept-driven civilization manifested itself in transformed perception, changed themes, materi-als used, aesthetic values. After the “Velvet revolution” in Czechoslova-kia, when we all sighed with some relief, my sculptural expression was of rather intimate, lyrical na-ture. I gained a lot when I studied sculpture at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA in 1989-1992.

Relatively peaceful 1990’s produced array of spatial metaphors, still readable in language of classical abstract modernism, bearing the seal of European heritage. But things are not going “velvet” in contemporary world, recent years profoundly changed our ways of thinking about the world,

“In the forms and titles of his sculptures,

Klic comments on contemporary social

ills such as misuse of political power and

war and its consequences.

Without being dogmatic, Klic encourages

us to think about the absurdity of life

and man’s inhumanity to man through his

haunting and frail sculptures.”

Rachel Rosenfield Lafo, Direcctor of Curatorial Affairs,

DeCordova Museum

I feel it as my inner choice to respond to this traumatized social and cultural milieu.

Emotional divides, virtual voids between substances, fragments of faith are themes of my sculpture, having been explored in drawings before taking shape as spatial metaphors.

What is actually spanning the space here and the space beyond?

Nobody, much less artist, can be immune from anxieties, indifferent to turmoil and traumas into which the current civilization is plunged. World saturated with explosives, minds brainwashed by doctrines, motives driven by base instincts, monstrous media deceptions, casualties mounting, mental and physical.

Because if the wheel forgets its formula,it will sing nude with herds of horses; ”

Porque si la rueda olvida su fórmula,ya puede cantar desnuda con las manadas de caballos;

Fderico Garcia Lorca

The theme of wheel, vehicle, to me the most mysterious and intriguing of human contraptions, and spiritual entanglements associated with it, offer intrinsic metaphor of existence. Dreamlike constructs, primitive and frail in their execution and use of organic materials, they refer back to the origins of travel and to the dominance of automobiles in contemporary society. In their fragility they express the psychological toll we pay for living in a world which at every moment seems to be obsessed with relentless mobility. In composition they seem to many viewers like spatial drawings, reduced to bare essentials and bizarre in their non-functionality, as if time and motion were suspended from within their very essence.

don’t worry, spiders,I keep house casually.

L I S T E N I N G T O L A N D M I N E S

R e e v e s G a l l e r y , N Y

This installation presents in metaphor the condition of endangered humanity. Landmines, the most vicious of weapons killing and mutilating the most innocent are strewn dense on the ground, made out of cotton, resin and copper, shaped like vessels with menacing content or vaguely like candles, as if whispering eulo-gies for their future victims.

Translucency and flickering reflections of light enhance the visual perception of galvanized land. Among them towering bamboo structure, painstakingly navigating its way through the inner siege, complete entrapment in obsession with bleeding edge technology.

The wings spread from above slightly sway and move with receptive diligence, granting attention to every each of the mines, listening to their poisoned inten-tions and grievances, sucking their ideological venom, rendering them temporar-ily harmless. The shape and composition of the “listener” performing his/her compassionate assignment on behalf of all of us visually resemble weirdo conductor being reversely conducted by the mines and transmitting the silent cry of the chorus.

E C H O I N T E R P R E T E R

R e e v e s G a l l e r y , N Y

O P I U M W A R S

R e e v e s G a l l e r y , N Y

”We will never, have done with

the question, not because there is

still too much question,

but because, in this detour of

profundity that is proper to it --

a movement that turns us away

from it and from ourselves --

the question places us in relation

with what has no end”

maurice blanchot

Traversing space having soul Traversing space having soul

as the only limb, tracing some as the only limb, tracing some

real or imaginary trajectories - real or imaginary trajectories -

do they have destinations as do they have destinations as

they have departure points? they have departure points?

They must have, since we are They must have, since we are

always moving, always moving,

whereabouts known or whereabouts known or

presumed. presumed.

D R Y P O I N T

D I A R Y O F T H E D I S A P P E A R E D

H O W L

On the withered, waveless solitude,The dented mask was dancing.Half of the world was sand,was dancing.Half of the world was sand,was dancing.

the other half mercury and dormant sunlight.

Fderico Garcia Lorca

ULTRA LIGHT GAMBLE

These ethereal compositions are emotional re-sponse to the heavy process of overlaying real, authentic world with virtual, mediated entities such that those became more valid and relevant than what the eye can really see and what mind used to be able to interpret in its own way.

Constant battering by media mirages does not leave us a chance to pause and reflect on the ways of mental escapism.

the dragonflycan’t quite land on that blade of grass

Although these sculptures are in com-position still in dialog with classical visual library, the use of the lightest aluminum alloys and the feeling of weightless vulnerability renders the experience of anxiety in conceptual metaphor.

You might be surprised, they disap-pear at slower pace than those media induced mirages.

¿buscaís azul limosnadel cielo moribundo?

Are you begging azure almsfrom this dying sky?Fderico Garcia Lorca

¿buscaís azul limosnadel cielo moribundo? ¿buscaís azul limosnadel cielo moribundo? ¿buscaís azul limosna

Are you begging azure almsAre you begging azure almsAre you begging

from this dying sky?Fderico Garcia Lorca

L E T T E R G H E T T O

M I S S I N G T I G H T R O P E

A S Y L U M # 3

P L A C E B O A L T A R

Are we in tune with natural phenomena enough to survive unharmed?

Are we part of them or are we distancing ourselves from them, not seeing our eyes?

Is there some other, rather metaphorical dimension to them which we are not aware of yet?

Fleeting perceptions of constantly flowing nature are our destiny, leaving us withvisual residue, spatial echoes.

Posing heat-tempered steel against cotton fiber, menacing blades against organic shapes speaks of anxiety and emotional distress. Metal blades swaying in the wind, touching, wounding, are both threats and bearers of meaning encrypted in the composition. Are they tattooing our memory permanently or do they recede in time? Would the metaphor be able to restore some dignity to this vulnerable creature calling itself human?At the rise of the

moonbells fade outand impassable paths appear.Fderico Garcia Lorca

Todas sueñan extrañasaventuras de sombra.Frutos inaccesiblesy vientos amaestrados.

Ninguna se conoce.Ciegas y desconocidas,les duelen sus perfumesenclaustrados por siempre.

Fderico Garcia Lorca

All of them dreaming strangeadventures in the shade. Fruits hanging out of reach& domesticated winds.

None of them know each other,blind & gone astray,their perfumes pining thembut cloistered now forever.

I met herthere at the crossroads.I don’t remember who spoke.Two breaths, two patterns of echo.This was both before andafter,

We shared one shadow.

Paul Celan

paths from a voice to a listening You

Paul Celan

Let me live Let me live unmirrored. unmirrored.

Coolness –the sound of the bell as it leaves the bell