"The greatest art always returns you to the vulnerability of the human situation." FRANCIS BACON
The material in the catalogue relating to their earlier development provides a basis on which, it is hoped, their new work will be better understood by non-Czech viewers. Despite the fact that conditions for the artist have radically altered since the Velvet Revolution of 1989 returned democracy to the Czech state, the issues which became the core of the work of the artists featured at this show have lost little of their relevance; society continues to face the struggle of extracting meaning out of the past, the present, human relationships, and our place in the world. Although formed in a climate barely comprehensible to viewers who have never experienced life in a totalitarian state, these issues have an inescapable, almost intuitive, message transcending the immediate contexts separating one country, one world, from another.
Although
modest in scale, the
project brings together the work of several of the finest Czech artists of recent
decades. Their story is highly representative of the issues faced by moddenr
Czech art as a whole: those of the creative individual standing at the crossroads
of the past and present, East abd West, freedom and non-freedom. The consistency
of their beliefs, the authenticity of their involvement and courage to actively
confront a seemingly endless series of human uncertainties echo Graham Greenes
conviction that "I would rather have
blood on my hands than water like Pilate."
Richard Drury, Exhibition curator