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Bald is beautiful

A headstrong show from Jiří Sopko
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By Tony Ozuna
For The Prague Post
October 3rd, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Hairless figures dominate the exhibit and set the emotional tone for "Sorrowful Landscapes," above.
Jiří Sopko: Cream

at Galerie Rudolfinum Ends Nov. 18. Alšovo nábř. 12, Prague 1–Old Town. Open Tues.–Sun. 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

The exhibition of more than 100 paintings and sculptures by Jiří Sopko (born in 1942) at Galerie Rudolfinum is expansive, but it is not a retrospective. Rather, the show of mostly recent works (2006–07) with some selected pieces from the 1990s serves as an update on one of the best-known and most commercially successful contemporary Czech artists, who is also a professor and the current rector at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
Whether new or older, most of the paintings are in bright, sometimes fluorescent colors. The subjects of the paintings are often heads and blocks, and sometimes heads balancing on blocks. There are also objects stacked on top of one another, such as in Foursome I, a tower of cylinders or coffee cups with broken handles, and Foursome II, a pile of what could be four houses or chapels.
The first room of the exhibit includes sculptures — bisected heads of clay on a long table, and smaller pieces across the room of subjects like a flat-faced head and an owl. Along the walls are acrylic paintings from 2007 and some earlier works from the mid-1990s.
The second room offers more recent paintings, such as Garden I–III (2006), a series of three canvases with bald heads against a background of flowers. The men’s heads are green, red and blue, while the fields behind them are blue with flowers to match the colors of the men. Journey to Spain I, II, III (2007) have floating clouds in three colors — pinkish-red ones in a green sky, whitish-gray ones in a light-blue sky and yellowish-black ones in a dark-orange and hazel sky.
Sopko’s best cloud painting is also in this room: Gray Cloud (2007) portrays a yellow boy who is bald and naked in a world of yellow sky and orange ground. A bulky gray cloud looms in the sky, eclipsing two-thirds of the canvas.
In the anterooms connecting the three longer salons in the gallery are miscellaneous sculptures that perfectly match the paintings. For instance, Faces (1993–95) offers painted portraits in different colors on small wooden blocks that resemble little billboards. One meditative solo painting in an anteroom, Light (1999), shows three round, bald figures holding candles with black dots permeating the image.
Another painting that uses the same device of black dots is located a few rooms away. This one, Snow (1998), shows three yellow men with bald heads and squinting eyes looking up into the sky as large blue flakes fall around them. The sky is a golden yellow mist.
The main salon room has the largest and most striking works in the show — especially Sopko’s tall walking figures, which are usually lanky, nude and androgynous. Two figures forming a cross — one bluish-green and the other reddish-orange — titled Meeting (1989) could be considered classic Sopko.
Triad is a pair of paintings. One portrays three armless, naked men standing in profile, one dark blue, one green and one purple, against a dark-blue background. The other canvas has three naked women (also armless), facing straight ahead: one yellow, one purple and one green, against a red background. In these works, and in his other best paintings, particularly in the main salon, Sopko’s figures and backgrounds are done in such deep colors that the images make a lasting impression despite their simplicity.
For instance, Bath (1990) depicts a green bald man sitting in a green cylinder bathing in purple fluid against a purple backdrop. The light fluorescent green against pale purple creates an eerie glow. This work is second in intensity only to Neon Light (1999), a dark-purple canvas with two standing figures (bald and nude, of course) with a golden yellow beam glowing in front of them. Their faces reflect the beam, and this work would be absolutely mesmerizing in a room with dimmer lighting and fewer other works surrounding it.
The last room of the exhibition has the most unusual and even playful works. In addition to mixed-media paintings, there are fine felt hats (made to look like faces) in various colors, set on mobile stands; a mound of more than a dozen crudely carved heads in a corner; and painted tree stumps engraved with heads or faces. As you exit, the last works are two small paintings of two little girls facing each other, titled Twins (2006). They look like cartoon characters, emotionless and two-dimensional, like most of the men and women portrayed in this exhibition.
Sopko’s emotionless, bald-headed figures could be self-portraits (the artist also is bald). But, more likely, they represent the society around him. His canvases are populated with people who in a way resemble the gray, faceless beings from Pink Floyd’s famous movie The Wall — only Sopko’s figures come in deep, vibrant colors.

Tony Ozuna can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (3/10/2007):

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