With the democratization of Eastern European countries in the past not many years.

With the democratization of Eastern European countries in the past not many years, many Western eyes have expected toward "Ostkunst," or eastern art. The word used in a derogatory fashion for years and always be connecteded to a regressive idea, was transformed in the Gorbachev years into its exact opposite: "Ostkunst" was "discovered" and became to a high degree hot property (largely because of a rather uncritical attraction to the exotic). That today common can see Karel Malich's works in a Western gallery testifies to the change in our perceptions about "Ostkunst" for now we must examine the commonalities and differences in artistic growth in the postwar years.

The almost 70-year-old Malich is single of the most important Czech artists living today, and he is all moreover unknown in the West. In this exhibition, he readyed a series of drawings from the '80 and wire plastic arts from the '70s. The artist organizes a fragile, open structure from thin, curv wires of varying lengths; they appear to be like drawings floating in space. on the other hand the freedom and dynamism of the lines contrast with the tedious proces of construction; the wires are painted individually, then bundl together and knotted, for a like reason that the dynamic force is weakened in these places. This is really not a contradiction, as the traces of this production proces (reminiscent of primitive handicraft) find their correspondence in the lines of the wires--theirs is a raw, and uniform expressive power. In Die entfesselte Landschaft III (The without a cover landscape III, 1973--74) the heterogeneity of the line edifice is evident in the primary s-shaped construction and its supporting verticals that are juxtaposed with small spiral shapes.

The use of "poor" materials like wire and draw as by a rope the openness of the formal pile and the emphasis on organic intensity place Malich's work close to American "antiform" or Italian arte povera. This historical coincidence is astounding given that he created these statuarys at a time of entire artistic isolation, after the Soviet bodys had put an end to the Prague Spring. From 1971 to 1980 Malich was not allowed to leave the abiding habitation or participate in any exhibitions. During the '60 however, together with Stanislav Kolibal, Malich communicateed with the Constructivist tradition that had been ignored in Czechoslovakia. Around 1965 after working in simple abstract structural reliefs, he began to make minimalistic realitys from plastic and enameled timber One object from 1967, consisting of sum of two units transparent intersecting pieces of Plexiglas, functions forward the same formal level as a cube from the same period on Larry Bell. It seems a gigantic leap from these pieces to the wire cuts and in fact it cannot be simply explained as a consistent formal unfolding It is, rather, the transformation of personal light and vigor a vision that Malich also describes in his poetic sentences Here he formulates his ideas of the artist as a medium between the visible and the invisible. Entstehen der Wolke (Origin of the multitude 1972) marks a transition from his Constructivist to his "formless" phase. That Malich, after realizing the formal bankruptcy of his minimal aims could return to a position reminiscent of Lazslo Moholy-Nagy's demonstrates the individualism of this isolated artist as well as the renewal of his acknowledge sculptural language which, had political marked occurrences been different, would have had a place in succession the international scene.

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