The exhibition, which presents a new series of paintings by David Krňanský at the Artefin Gallery, is named Walking Dog.

Is Krňanský inviting us on a purposeless walk with the dog, where we can switch off our overwhelmed minds and just let ourselves be pulled by visual sensations?

Or is Krňanský giving us a clue to let the absurdity of the exhibition title pull us into a deeper semiotic game? Both directions are correct, you can go there once, then go the other way again.

So let us first approach the modernist abstract tradition of painting lightly and let ourselves be carried away by the basal shapes, good technique and composition. Lightness, experience and the desired detachment allow Krňanský to get away with little. On his canvases, he repetitively plays out compositions of a square, circle, triangle or rectangle from layers of several different media, from acrylic to pastel to graffiti spray. Keeping in mind the impatient, multitasking modern viewer whose attention must not be wasted on unnecessary thoughts, passages or words, he provides us with intuitively familiar shapes – pieced together by new means into new compositions.

If we want to go further, we can begin to unravel a morphology based on primordial shapes that Krňanský cuts, unforms, repaints and reapplies. For modern painting will never again be modern, post-modern, or outmoded. Similarly, the meanings of shapes like the circle, rectangle or triangle, formerly symbolizing, for example, the sun, dwelling and air, will now be read by most of us more as emoticons for a smiley face, an iPhone or a pizza. We can judge Krňanský’s paintings not only on the basis of their style or aesthetic qualities, but also on their ability to reveal something about the culture in which they were created.

“Paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life, we must still take a walk from time to time,” Roland Barthes said on March 27, 1980, while walking his dog.

Text: Lenka Bakeš