Artists Reach Beyond Limitations Jundt Museum Show Conveys Positive Messages Despite Tragic History Of Artists’ Homelands

The Jundt Art Museum’s exhibition “Contemporary Central and Eastern European Prints” is a fulfillment of the many wonderful strengths that are held within the Jundt art center’s walls. The exhibition consists of about 60 prints created by artists who were working in Eastern Europe before the disintegration of Communism. The majority of these works have found a home in Gonzaga’s archives as a result of the visit J. Scott Patnode, director/curator of the Jundt Art Museum, made to the Baruch Gallery in Chicago some years ago. The Baruch Gallery, driven by the efforts of Jacques and Anne Baruch, “assisted many artists engaged in the struggle for artistic freedom behind the Iron Curtain.” Patnode’s interest in this mission, and the generosity of Anne Baruch and others, ultimately led to the Gonzaga collection.

The political context is not the only context that imparts these prints with meaning, but certainly that is the best vantage point. The art is loosely arranged according to national borders as they are drawn today, but if the show were hung according to the barriers at the time most of the pieces were made, its arrangement would be quite different. Behind those barriers, these artists existed in a climate of oppression, but despite such limitations, they created prints of substance and skill.

Viewing the exhibition as a whole, one is struck by the heavily fantastic and surreal quality in the majority of the selections. Perhaps such remote languages were merely means for the artists to mask their disturbing voices and realities, a necessary defense to enforced internalization. In the resulting art, such painful internalization seems to struggle to break free of such suppression, manifesting itself in scenes dense with exacting detail and bizarre complexity.

For instance, in Brunovsky’s “Lady With a Hat” series, the heads are crowned with hats that are more akin to appendages of their states of mind - as though instead of wearing their hearts on their sleeves, they are wearing their hearts on their heads. “Lady With a Hat I/Widow” portrays a pensive woman wearing a hat that seems not a hat at all, but a cosmos above her head in which floundering ships indicate she lost her husband at sea.

Not all of the images are so subtle. The works by Jiri Anderle, for example, unapologetically refer to the horrors of war. Anderle, an internationally recognized Czech artist, depicts his figures as though crossing the boundaries between life and death. Themes of war become grotesque caricatures - haunting faces retain their flesh and identity, bodies disappear into skeletal shells still decorated with the medals and symbols of military power.

Despite the tragedy underlying much of these countries’ histories, this is a show that conveys positive messages. Not only do we know these artists have greater freedom today than they did when these works were completed, we know that these artists have remained in their countries to live and work despite the opportunity to leave. There is also a global truth to the ingenuity of an artist under adverse circumstances. Many artists around the world have experienced the limitations that inspired Czech Alena Kucerova to develop her printmaking style. Unable to gain access to traditional printmaking materials, she began to use tin-coated metal plates as a base, crudely puncture them with holes, and create prints from the inked result. The unique image produced by this method has now become her acclaimed trademark.

This exhibit is the perfect follow-up to the Dale Chihuly exhibition, for not only does it demonstrate the strength of the resources in Gonzaga’s permanent collection, it demonstrates the flexibility of the Jundt Art Museum space to display works of varying natures. Gonzaga can finally showcase its holdings as they deserve, and provide an ongoing cultural and academic resource. And although many might be sad to see the Chihuly exhibition gone, it is not forgotten - the chandelier remains.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “Contemporary Central & Eastern European Prints: The Gonzaga University Collection,” Through March 5, at the Jundt Art Museum