Imrich Tomáš
Retrospektive . Mein Leben in West Berlin
29 Oct – 28 Nov 2020
About
Imrich Tomáš is one of the defining figures in the work of the Kai Dikhas Gallery and is represented several times with his sensitive abstract relief works in the collection of the foundation of the same name. Tomáš can look back on a full artistic life. In the 1970s, he escaped the political and cultural confines of his homeland, Czechoslovakia, by fleeing to West Berlin. Here he found himself not only in the longed-for political freedom, but above all in the pulsating cultural life of the then insular city. For the first time, the exhibition "My Life in West Berlin" brings together works from different creative phases of the artist: We experience a surprisingly expressive departure, see portraits of chosen relatives and inspiring writers, nudes and landscapes by the master student of the HdK, atmospheric and surrealistic images of a phase of fantastic realism, as well as perceptive and ironic views of West Berlin life.
In the synopsis, an astonishing intersection emerges in the exhibition, showing us what the artist's quality and eye want us to see. It becomes apparent that - however different the approaches may be - the artist's very (self-)critical gaze has always been on a straightforward path of approach to a pictorial logic immanent in his gaze, and that the ultimate development of today's sculptural abstract works is precisely the logical development of a long career as an artist. It was here that Imrich Tomáš finally found his creative freedom, which he was already seeking when he set out.
In the retrospective, the decades-long work of this critical approach can be traced. Whether in the pasty expressionist application of paint in his self-portraits from his student days, in the exemption of photorealistically depicted bodies or in the ironic portrayal of portly West Berliners, the artist is always concerned with the corporeal, thus with the friction with another boundary, namely the representation of the three-dimensional in the two-dimensional, which in the development of the hemp fibre sculptures finally found the tried and tested liberation of the panel painting into sculpture, into wall architecture.
Against all odds, Tomáš creates his own artistic visual language that completely eludes any attributions. Imrich Tomáš is part of the artistic avant-garde of the Roma, an artist who neither allows discriminating circumstances to divert him from his arduous and labourious path of art, nor does he deny his origins in any way. He is what he is: a self-critical and alert observer, and in what he creates, the embodiment of the idea of what our exhibitions and the work of the Kai Dikhas Foundation should be about. For it is the freedom of art that may be able to lift us humans out of our own limitations.
In the synopsis, an astonishing intersection emerges in the exhibition, showing us what the artist's quality and eye want us to see. It becomes apparent that - however different the approaches may be - the artist's very (self-)critical gaze has always been on a straightforward path of approach to a pictorial logic immanent in his gaze, and that the ultimate development of today's sculptural abstract works is precisely the logical development of a long career as an artist. It was here that Imrich Tomáš finally found his creative freedom, which he was already seeking when he set out.
In the retrospective, the decades-long work of this critical approach can be traced. Whether in the pasty expressionist application of paint in his self-portraits from his student days, in the exemption of photorealistically depicted bodies or in the ironic portrayal of portly West Berliners, the artist is always concerned with the corporeal, thus with the friction with another boundary, namely the representation of the three-dimensional in the two-dimensional, which in the development of the hemp fibre sculptures finally found the tried and tested liberation of the panel painting into sculpture, into wall architecture.
Against all odds, Tomáš creates his own artistic visual language that completely eludes any attributions. Imrich Tomáš is part of the artistic avant-garde of the Roma, an artist who neither allows discriminating circumstances to divert him from his arduous and labourious path of art, nor does he deny his origins in any way. He is what he is: a self-critical and alert observer, and in what he creates, the embodiment of the idea of what our exhibitions and the work of the Kai Dikhas Foundation should be about. For it is the freedom of art that may be able to lift us humans out of our own limitations.