"As a rule, black monochrome paintings are met world-wide with a lack of understanding, pity and quandary from observers finding themselves in front of a completely darkened field, on which initially they cannot see much and are therefore not prepared to get spiritually or mentally deeply engaged with it. Most sensible are the reactions of those who, regarding such works, think about the utmost level of the painting process, which cannot announce anything else but the end of art. In these findings, however, we can often conclude that the critics experience their own weaknesses, which more than the end of art declares the end of any discourse about it. To them, such paintings seem closed in their character, since they are free of any imitation or any other relation to reality by being reduced to their own, purely artistic or plastic language. However, those artists who in the development logic of their work and, of course, by reflecting on world-wide artistic creation and its past have arrived at the uttermost margin, at the black painting, have stopped at this point, preferring to dedicate their time to other problems."
—Jure Mikuž (From the study in the monograph)

"There is what appears to be a surprising shift in Sandi Červek’s creative output: he has turned back to the language of figurative art and a renewed material syntax in a sensuous linear drawing, such as had marked his painting until 1989. But as it turns out, such gesturally relaxed colour recordings on paper have been the silent companions of his oeuvre of black paintings also for these past twenty years, although he did not wish to show them publicly until recently.
In an intimate dialogue with the phantasmal background, the artist shakes off all connections to reality, so that only his physical body exists, ecstatically recording the impulses of his imaginary vocabulary, not following any train of thought, just with automatic, forceful gestures. It seems as though he wants to avoid the recognizability of his “hand,” only agreeing to forms that derive from pure, impersonal passion, without style or any references to occurrences, trends, or movements in the past or contemporary art.
Červek’s images reflect a real, realistic world: the simple things of our everyday, such as home furnishings and objects, a landscape with houses, bridges, bodies of water, vineyards, trees in bloom, poplars, and the local fauna, insects included; still life or cartoon heroes."
—Mateja Podlesnik (From the essay in the monograph)

The exhibition will present Červek’s light-articulated black paintings (which he is creating from the early nineties on) and small works on paper in oil pastel technique. To accompany the exhibition, City Art Gallery Ljubljana / MGML will publish a monograph with a study by Jure Mikuž, PhD, and an essay by Mateja Podlesnik.

Sandi Červek: Paintings and Drawings 1985 – 2011

Sandi Červek has been creating abstract paintings using only black since 1989. Since they might seem sad and hermetic people do not usually relish such works at first sight, however ...