Skip to content

Transcendency

Basement Gallery

From the cycle Transcendency I. / Z cyklu Transcendencia I., 1970/1978

Gold pigment photo, whitening liquid, perforation, paper
18 × 24 cm

In the 1970s the themes of emptiness, transcendence, and the absolute played an important role in Filko’s work. Transcendence addresses realms beyond material reality, and it entered into Filko’s work in 1973 in the form of the color white in the installation White Space in White Space. This work was created in collaboration with Miloš Laky and Ján Zavarský, but thereafter Filko developed the theme alone, as in the Transcendency cycle. In the course of his work, Filko brought all of the works exploring this theme together under the idea of White Ontology.

In this photo series, Filko again addresses a process of dematerializing art, here shifting it to different kinds of photographs in which he sets in motion a dynamics of disappearance. Filko removes faces or whole people from the pictures, either through overpainting them in white, or by actually cutting faces out of the paper of the photographs. Filko uses these works as mirrors of transcendence, as he himself put it. This would seem to be a form of the transformation of everyday life.

Some of the photographs have added golden pigment that makes them seem like sacred objects. This impression is heightened by the overpainting of entire figures in white, so that what remain are flat silhouettes that add a mysterious element to reality. On one photograph this is particularly conspicuous: a group of persons is leaning on a railing before a church, and between the church and these people is a figure seen from the front and overpainted in white. White color fields in other works in the series clearly show their affinity to the aesthetics of White Space in White Space.

On some works Filko himself might be seen, but his face is always covered over in white. In others well-known people from history or Filko’s friends are presented, but most of them have been made unrecognizable. The still visible features of buildings and landscape in two photographs suggest that these were taken in 1970 during Filko’s trip to Japan to take part in the Expo in Osaka. The artist seems to transfer his own personal experience into the white of transcendence, addressing a different level of reality. The accompanying incorporeality recalls spiritual teachings and seems to propose a timeless perspective on life. In religious contexts leaving the real world behind is often associated with a kind of purity. Filko seems to be taking a more radical approach to his art here, with a new introspection and formlessness, and an awareness of an absolute existence which he repeatedly proclaimed through his own self. His 5th dimension stands at the center of it all, with the color white symbolizing this realm.

From the cycle Transcendency / Z cyklu Transcendencia, 1978 – 79
Gold pigment photo, paper
5974,6 cm

From the cycle Transcendency / Z cyklu Transcendencia, 1978 – 79
Gold pigment photo, whitening liquid, paper
5169 cm

From the cycle Transcendency / Z cyklu Transcendencia, 1978 – 80
Gold pigment photo, whitening liquid, perforation, paper
2418 cm

From the cycle Transcendency / Z cyklu Transcendencia, 1979
Gold pigment photo, paper
2418 cm

From the cycle Transcendency / Z cyklu Transcendencia, 1979
Gold pigment photo, whitening liquid, paper
5774 cm

From the cycle Transcendency I. / Z cyklu Transcendencia I., 1970/1978
Gold pigment photo, whitening liquid, perforation, paper
1824 cm

From the cycle Transcendency II. / Z cyklu Transcendencia II., 1978
B/W photo, whitening liquid, pen, paper
1824 cm

From the cycle Transcendency III. / Z cyklu Transcendencia III., 1979
B/W photo, pen, perforation, paper
1824 cm

From the cycle Transcendency III. / Z cyklu Transcendencia III., 1979
B/W photo, whitening liquid, pen, perforation, paper
1824 cm

Transcendention / Transcendencia, 1977
B/W photograph, pen
2418,2 cm

Chronology of the Creation – Art, 1979/1995
Print, pen, white latex, pencil, paper
23,117,9 cm
Courtesy The Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava

5th DIMENSION WHITE ONTOLOGIC TRANSCENDENCE DEVOURED EVERYTHING / 5. DIMENZIA BIELA ONTOLOGICKÁ TRANSCENDENCIA – ZOŽRALA VŠETKO, 1980 – 95
Print, pen, latex, paper
60,742,6 cm
Courtesy The Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava

From the series Transcendency/​Filko EGO / Zo série Transcendencie/​Filko EGO, 1978 – 79/​ca. 1990
Collage, B/W photograph, golden pigment, whitening liquid, pen, found paper cover
48,654,2 cm

All works if not otherwise stated Courtesy Linea Collection, Bratislava; Layr, Vienna