Suppression, Subversion, and the Surreal: The Art of Czechoslovakian Resistance, Part One

In Hommage à Albrecht Dürer II, Kulhánek evokes Albrecht Dürer’s well-known print, The Fall of Man, through a partial inclusion of Dürer’s Adam and Eve figures in the background.

In contrast to Adam and Eve, who are both headless, Kulhánek renders the central male figure’s facial features – like his bulging eyes, which stare hauntingly past the viewer – in striking detail.

Geometric lines and sketches are present on all three figures in the piece. The presence of these lines show Kulhánek’s technical skills in the creation of the bodies and emphasize the work’s exploration of the figuration of the human form. In addition to this bodily focus, the evocation of Dürer, specifically The Fall of Man, both calls upon Dürer’s influential contribution to Northern European art – especially printmaking – and speaks to an apocalyptic mindset that Kulhánek and others may have possessed during this time of political oppression.

Kulhánek evokes Grünewald’s renowned Isenheim Altarpiece in his print Hommage à Matthias Grünewald. The lithograph specifically references Matthias Grünewald’s (German, c. 1475/1480 – 1528) iconic rendering of Saint Sebastian’s martyrdom and the Crucifixion, which are among the scenes featured on the outside panels of the polyptych altarpiece.

The main figure of Kulhanek’s print, Saint Sebastian, signified by his iconographic arrow wounds, closely resembles that of Grünewald’s.

Grünewald’s influence also appears with the inclusion of a hand nailed to the cross, signifying Christ’s stigmata (marks that correspond to those left on Jesus’ body by the Crucifixion).

Kulhánek created this piece shortly after the Czechoslovakian Communist regime fell in 1989. Thus, the referential imagery of suffering and sacrifice in this piece may symbolize the suffering underwent by the Czechoslovakian people to finally reach salvation in the form of freedom of expression.

Ecce Homo #1 is part of a series of prints created during the 1990s. All possessing the same title, the pieces in the series contrast images of the old and the young. The title, Ecce Homo, translates from Latin to “Behold the Man” and refers to the words of Pontius Pilate when he presents Jesus Christ to a crowd of Jews prior to his crucifixion.

In choosing Ecce Homo as the title of this series, Kulhánek asks the viewer to behold the life cycle of man while articulating that, “at the beginning is the starting point for the search for life, at the end it is the dull abyss of the final infinity.”

Through the contrasting images of the piece, the viewer is reminded that the innocence in the beginning of life will eventually culminate to the burden of knowledge in the end.

This print displays the powerful employment of literal fragmentation within Anderle’s work, including imagery of a portrait of Anne Baruch, a piece of fruit, a skull, and an open heart.

The presence of Anne’s portrait may be attributed to the fact that Anne and Jacques Baruch held and displayed a rather substantial amount of Anderle’s work at their Chicago gallery. The Baruchs are responsible for many of the works within the collection of Dr. Eugene Rogolsky, who donated this piece to the USC Fisher Museum. Although the gallery no longer exists, Anne Baruch’s legacy may be preserved in the works of the artists she supported as she wished that their art would, “continue to bring the curiosity and interaction that I have felt as I moved around the works hanging on my walls during different periods of my life.”

Jiří Anderle is best known for his fantastical etchings and graphic work that often depict human form as well as re-examine it within different contexts. This portrait may be likened to the Portrait of Monsieur Riviére by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. One may observe how closely Anderle’s collection of ghostly figures resemble machines or automatons in their anatomy. It is reminiscent of the Renaissance artist, Leonardo da Vinci’s, Vitruvian man (c. 1490), exhibited through his formal analysis of the body.

The image byIngres in the center clearly displays Anderle’s formal academic skill, as he achieves a hyper-realistic portrait, but his ghostly figures introduce conversation of unanswered questions left to be discerned by the viewer.

Anderle asks the viewer to consider the body, identity, industrial influence, and the relationship of one’s self within society. He leaves the true narrative as a mystery, giving the reader an opportunity to dissect the imagery on their own.

This mezzotint was modeled after the 1657 painting Coastal landscape with Acis and Galatea, by French Baroque painter Claude Lorrain. Anderle found much inspiration in the paintings of the Renaissance masters.

Both Lorrain and Anderle paint a landscape depicting the Greek myth of the lovers. Although, Anderle does not merely copy the composition of the original painting; he introduces a new narrative with his inclusion of a grotesque figure watching over the scene.

Due to the political climate at the time, it appears this voyeuristic moment between the lovers and the figure could represent the sentiment Czechoslovakians would have felt for sexual privacy, as they were the only moments of private freedom they truly had at the time.