Blažej Baláž

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Blažej Baláž
Born	(1958-10-29) October 29, 1958 Nevoľné, Slovakia
Nationality	Slovak
Field	Painting, Drawing, Printmaking, Sculpture, Performance & Event
Training	Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava
Movement	Neo-conceptual art, Postminimalism, Post-Geo and Post Radical Painting

Blažej Baláž (born October 29, 1958, in Nevoľné, Slovakia, former Czechoslovakia) is a contemporary Slovak artist. His practise as an artist is usually associated with Neo-conceptualism, Postminimalism, Post-Geo and Post Radical Painting. After 1988 he began working with text as art, neo-conceptual and post-conceptual texts (intext, outtext).

Life and work

Baláž studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Bratislava and his Magister of Fine Arts degree received in 1983. Baláž has been the Head of Department of Fine Arts Education at the University of Trnava since 1999. He was a founder member of the artists group East of Eden (1998). Since 1979, he has been married to the artist Maria Balazova. He lives and works in Trnava.

He has shown work internationally in exhibitions including the Drawing 1990, Provo, USA (1990), Vth International Drawing Triennale, Wrocław (1992), 12th International Biennale of Small Sculpture, Murska Sobota (1995), International Biennale of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana (1989, 1995, 1999), Object / Object. Prague, Czech Museum of Fine Arts (2001), Intertext / From the conceptual to postconceptual text,^[1] Ján Koniarek Gallery, Trnava (2009), Formats of Transformation 89 – 09 / Seven views on the new Czech and Slovak identity, House of Art, Brno (2009).

Solo exhibitions (retrospective): Geld macht Kunst, Ján Koniarek Gallery, Trnava (2003) , Blažej Baláž Texts 1988/2007, The East Slovak Gallery, Košice (2007), Museum of Fine Arts, Žilina (2007), SUCHARATOLEST House of Art, Bratislava (2009), WARTEZEIT, Slowakisches Institut Wien (2009), Post-Geo-Text (with Mária Balážová), Slowakisches Institut Berlin (2011).

His works are held in the public collections of Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, National Gallery in Prague (CZ), Muzeum Archidiecezjalne, Katowice (PL), Fries Museum, Leeuwarden (NL), Jan Koniarek Gallery, Trnava , East Slovakian Gallery Košice, City Gallery , Bratislava, Central Slovakian Gallery, Banská Bystrica .

Cycle Treptomachia

Baláž’s works brings the new possibilities at the field of post-conceptual and neo-conceptual text. The exhibition is divided in three segments, all of them are connected by the specific and authentic search of the possibilities in the conceptual Macaronic language. The first is created from the neo-conceptual horizontal/vertical texts, a part of Treptomachia, (WARTEZEIT, 2006, WARTERAUM, 2006 and How to domesticate the English language, 2006). The internal orientation of artworks, the search of art itself, the search of language and text brings the cracking of syntactic/semantic wholeness of graphems. The metatexts of initial prototext are distinguished by the colors (oil on canvas, 300 x 200 cm). In this regard Baláž's eff ort culminates by the diptych TREPTOMACHIA.EN-A / How to domesticate the English language and TREPTOMACHIA.DE-B / How to domesticate the German language (2006). Both are depicted on big-size canvas, within which the only dominating word with partial messages is replaced with newly defined optical language with tens of words. The colour decomposition of the grapheme creates a symptomatic background for language overlapping and the contamination, which creates the supreme moment of the author's Babylonian crossroads.^[2] Another, the second segment, black and white acryl-paintings enriches the former one, the artworks are created on principle of the structuralist analysis of text. It is a variant, which is called and named by author and curator the intext. By the segmentation of text the author discovers several lexis. These have a different lexical origin, five West-European, five East-European, and „dead“ language of Medieval Esperanto – Latin. Despite the cold artificiality of works, this segment has also the hidden sociocritical context, which is oscillated between phenomenons West and East, art and politics.^[3] The third segment is the most open and subjective. These horizontal texts are named by its author as the simultaneous texts. It is a different alternative in the post-conceptual Makaronian text, the melange is created by harmony of the initial and derivative text. Its ironic and attacking character replaces a cold aspect of the first two segments. Vajanský’s Suchá ratolesť (an ironic parallel of failing elits) is floundered by streams, the subject is named by the author as east rat in the age of 20-years of wandering a la democrazy, with a more complicated ambivalent reading. The fragility of ground – paper [four artworks, width 10 m] raises the openness of statement, ODRBMADEMOKRATICKY, 2008 [screw me over democratically], is predominative.

Selected solo exhibitions

Blažej Baláž / Painting, drawing, installations, Central Slovakian Gallery, Banská Bystrica, 1 July - 16 August 1992 (catalogue)
Postscriptum II, City Gallery of Bratislava, Bratislava, 16 December 1993 – 30 January 1994
Gutten Tag, Frau Koppl, Jan Koniarek Gallery, Trnava, 18 February – 23 March 1997
Geld macht frei, Vojtech Löffler Museum, Košice, 15 November – 30 December 2000 (catalogue)
Mária and Blažej Baláž : The Discreet Charm of the Painting , House of Art, Česke Budějovice, 27 March – 21 April 2002
Geld macht Kunst, Jan Koniarek Gallery, Trnava, 12 June – 18 August 2003
Texts 1988 / 2007, The East-Slovakian Gallery, Košice, 21 June – 23 July 2007 (catalogue);
Texts 1988 / 2007, Museum of Fine Arts, Žilina, 13 September – 14 October 2007 (catalogue);
SUCHARATOLEST, House of Art, Bratislava, 13 May – 8 June 2009
WARTERAUM , Slowakisches Institut, Vienna, 27 May – 22 June 2009 (catalogue);
Conceptual texts, Liptov Gallery of P. M. Bohúň, Liptovský Mikuláš, 10 February – 9 April 2011
Mária Balážová-Blažej Baláž : Post-Geo-Text, Slowakisches Institut, Berlin, 14 April – 30 May 2011
EINEMU, Nitra Gallery, Nitra, 31 May – 22 July 2012

Selected group exhibitions

Art Basel 19´88, Basel, Switzerland, 1988
18th International Print Biennale, Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 1989
Ľ Europe des Graveurs, Grenoble, Bibliothèque Municipale, France, 1989
Drawing 1990, Provo, Utah, USA, 1990
9.Internationale Grafik Triennale, Frechen, Kunstferein zu Frechen, Germany, 1990
Vth International Drawing Triennale, Wroclaw, Poland, 1992
12th International Biennale of Small Sculpture, Murska Sobota, Slovenia, 1995
Seitenwechsel, Heidelberg, Heidelberger Schlos, Germany, 1995
Picturale, Est, Strasbourg, France, 1997
Object / Object. Metamorphoses in Time, The Czech Museum of Fine Arts, Prague, Czech Republic, 2001
The Art of Action, 1989-2000, Poprad, Tatra Gallery, Nitra, Nitra Gallery, 2001
New End of Painting, Trnava, Jan Koniarek Gallery, 2002
Contemporary Slovak Painting 2000-2005, City Gallery of Prague, Prague, Czech Republic, 2005
Slovak Graphic Art of the 20th Century, City Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia, 2007
Intertext / From conceptual to postconceptual text, Jan Koniarek Gallery, Trnava, Slovakia, 2009
Formate der Transformation 89-09, MUSA - Museum auf Abruf, Vienna, Austria, 2010
After Hours : Phase 2 / Artists from Slovakia, Santa Ana, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, USA, 2010
1st International Biennial of Drawing , Municipal Muzeum, Györ, Hungary, 2011
Daisies and Clones, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia, 2011
ObraSKov, Wannieck Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic, 2011
5th International Drawing Competition Wroclaw 2012, Muzeum Architektury, Wroclaw, Poland, 2012
Blood, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia, 2012

Works

Mechanical Paradise (1988/1990)
HROBONJOUR (1992)
Artwart (1997)
Skarabeus (1997)
Memory 2 / Unpowdered painting (1998)
Mandala 4 / Black (1997/2000)
Geld macht frei (2001)
Mandala 5 (2001)
Poppy Seed Field (2001/02)- Monochrome painting
CLEANMONEY (2002)
Mandala 15 (2003)
GODSAVEUS (2003)
The Art of kill (2004)
WETRUSTIN (2004–07)
Treptomachia. EN – A / How to domesticate the English language (2005/06)
Treptomachia. DE – B / How to domesticate the German language (2006)
WARTERAUM (2007)
WARTEZEIT (2007)
SUCHARATOLEST (2008)
SLOVENSKY (2006/09)
BESTEHLEN (2007/09)
BESTOCKEN (2007/09)
EINEMU (2011)
Treptomachia.En - Wart (2011)
Treptomachia.Sk - Vanitas (2011)
Art after Poetry 6 / IAMAPHERIPHERALARTIST (2011–12)
Art after Poetry 7 / IAMAPSEUDOCONCEPTUALARTIST (2012)
Art after Poetry 8 / IAMACHECHEN (2012)
WHYENTARTAINMENT, 2013

Books, catalogues

VALOCH, J. – VARTECKÁ, A. 2003. Blažej Baláž. Trnava : Trnava University, East of Eden, 132 p. (In English and Slovak) ISBN 80-89074-22-7
BESKID, V. – GAJDOŠ, R. 2007. Blažej Baláž : Texts 1988 /2007. Trnava : East of Eden, Trnava University, 48 p. (In English and Slovak) ISBN 978-80-8082-129-6
BALÁŽ, B. 2009. The Texts of the Texts. Trnava : Trnava University, 30 p. ISBN 978-80-8082-314-6

References

External links

Authority control	VIAF: 13470784 ISNI: 0000 0000 7876 2057

Persondata
Name	Baláž, Blažej
Alternative names
Short description	Slovak artist
Date of birth	October 29, 1958
Place of birth	Nevoľné
Date of death
Place of death

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