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Gyula Kalko Artist Statement THE CIRCLE OF HISTORY Paintings by Gyula Kalko
Sir Kenneth Clark concluded his popular Civilization TV series in 1969 with this famous, darkly prophetic poem. Yet, these same ominous words could be evoked to describe the sense of chaos we experience today. At the dawn of the 21th century our world is increasingly permeated by a profound sense of intellectual and spiritual anxiety in the face of exploding technologies and constant social, political, and economic change. Tribalism, AIDS, famine, surging nationalism, ethnic cleansing, religious fanaticism and war as television entertainment have replaced the promised 'peace dividend' in the wake of communist collapse. The New World Order has not emerged. The centre lacks cohesive focus. Mankind appears to be no more in control of its destiny today, than at any other time in the history of civilization. There is an element of the 'shock of recognition' in the contemporary relevance found in images throughout the history of art, which offers a vast array of evidence that human nature has not changed at all. Hunger for dominance and power, insatiable greed, violence and exploitation, were all subjects that the Old Masters dealt with over and over again. This familiarity is part of the underlying power through which their images continue to speak to us on a universal level. In this series of paintings by Toronto artist, Gyula Kalko, the appropriated details of familiar works from the history of Western art illustrate deeply rooted parallels and connections of the human condition between past and present societies. The simulated x-ray panels (a byproduct of scientific scrutiny used in art conservation) work as a formal device through which historical distance, and a sense of detachment from the past, is established and the ambiguity of the connection with the present is communicated. The sections painted realistically and in full colour represent contemporary society and deal with subject matter that effects all of us. In biblical times it was greed and megalomania that caused the Tower of Babel to crumble, just as surely as they make fortunes rise and fall today. The fatigue and resignation of the guardsman, captured in a painting by Carel Fabritius, is the same as that of an exhausted and frustrated UN peacekeeper. As the exuberant and provocative parades on Gay Pride Day in cities across North America speak of prevalent social pressures, so the hedonistic bacchanalia processions depicted by Annibale Carracci on the ceiling of the Palazzo Farnese point to the battle of ideologies in 17th century Rome. Whether cloaked in antiquity by Poussin or captured by TV cameras on the streets of Sarajevo, the atrocities and horrors of war outrage us all the same. The possibilities of poignant associations are many.
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