Milan Dobeš

The Slovak artist Milan Dobeš is one of the most prominent representatives of the constructivist tendencies that were most apparent on the Czechoslovak art scene during the 1960s. Like other creators of objects from the generation of artists born in the 1920s, e.g. Karel Malich and Radoslav Kratina, Dobeš did not receive a classical training in sculpture. He studied figural and landscape painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. In his early, impressionistic landscapes and urban scenes we see his fascination with light and dynamic forms. During the 1950s he experimented with other spheres as well. In addition to the project Polymuzický prostor / Polymusical Space at Divadlo vidění (Theatre of Vision) he worked as stage designer and dancer in the experimental dance group Vysokoškolský umělecký soubor (University Art Ensemble).

At the end of the 1950s, under the influence of Expo 58 in Brussels, Dobeš re-assessed his work to date and began to move slowly in the direction of geometric abstraction. At first he created geometric drawings, graphics and prints, in which the basic element was a circle and its segments, and this became the main feature of his later work. In the early sixties he finally turned his back on painting in favour of kinetic objects in the series Vizuálních objektů a mobilů / Visual Objects and Mobiles. His objects used either an external lights source, as in the series Pulsující rytmy / Pulsating Rhythms, or light was an integral part, e.g. the project Majáky / Lighthouses. He set forth his aesthetic in a manifesto from 1961 entitled O světle a pohybu / On Light and Movement. The title makes it clear which elements he now regarded as pivotal.

Unlike Czech representatives of constructivist tendencies, Dobeš’s approach was characterised by the inclusion of technical elements such as electrical motors, light bulbs and above all convex and concave mirrors. The use of reflection is reminiscent of the work of Hugo Demartini, whose objects never transcended the threshold of stability and whose movement remained only imaginary, introduced by means of the reflection and movement of the people in front of it. During the latter half of the sixties constructivism became one of the main directions in Czech art. The exhibition Nová citlivost / New Sensitivity of 1968, at which Dobeš was represented, was a kind of synthesis of variations upon constructivism. A feature of this new sensitivity was an admiration for technology and a neo-humanism, which turned away from nature and applied an individual style. Dobeš was something of an outlier at the exhibition, mainly because technique arose of its own accord in his works. In the exhibition catalogue he wrote: “Technique and science offer people the opportunity to avail themselves of more time to devote to themselves, philosophy and art. Civilisation helps put aside the spectacles of ingrained thinking and understanding in three-dimensionality.”

By involving the fourth dimension, i.e. movement, in his objects, Dobeš moved closer to events taking place on the global art scene, in which kinetic art was combined with op-art (as in the work of Julio Le Parc and Jesús Rafael Sot). In addition to spatial works, drawings and silk-screen graphics were an important part of his work during this period, creating optical illusions and the semblance of movement through geometric composition. This gave rise to objects characterised by rotary movement drawing on the primary colours, e.g. Kruhy a světlo / Circles and Light (1967) or Barevná rytmická světla / Coloured Rhythmical Light (1965). Dobeš was soon receiving international recognition, and this was aided by the Prague exhibition Vizuální a kinetické objekty / Visual and Kinetic Objects of 1966. In the following years he participated at several international exhibitions, the most important being 4. dokumenta in 1968 and EXPO 70 in Osaka, where he exhibited the object Hra světla a tvarů / The Play of Light and Shapes.

Dobeš made the most of technical possibilities and in the 1970s returned to art and theatre in a kinetic performance of Polymuzický prostor in Piešťany in 1970. In the same year and place he created the object Kinetická věž / Kinetic Tower, which was moved by wind in the manner of Alexander Calder. During the seventies, at the start of the normalisation period, Dobeš was able to travel to the USA, where in 1971 he toured with the American Wind Symphony Orchestra and accompanied his light-kinetic programme with symphonic works by Toshiro Mayuzumi and Krysztof Penderecki.

In 1973 he set forth his aesthetic programme in a text entitled Světlo jako výtvarný materiál / Light as a Creative Material. Given the huge restrictions placed on exhibiting at this time, he devoted himself to more intimate sculptures, optical graphics and collages. From the end of the sixties he had also had the opportunity to create monuments, something he did mainly for towns and cities in Slovakia. True to their creator’s admiration for technology, these objects were made of glass, plastic or metal. The most important include the kinetic object in Montevideo (1969), the light-kinetic object in the building of the Czechoslovak Embassy in Stockholm (1972), and the optical relief in the entrance hall of the Czechoslovak Science and Technology Societies in Bratislava (1979).

During the 1980s he continued to develop his creative principles, for instance in the series Opticko-kinetických objektů / Optical-Kinetic Objects. He also worked on graphics, where the main role was again taken by the circle and variations thereon, e.g. Pohyb struktur / The Movement of Structures (1986). In 1988 he wrote his second artistic manifesto entitled Dynamický konstruktivismus / Dynamic Constructivism, in which he writes: “Movement is the basic condition of the existence of everything. Movement is life. To depict movement is to depict life.” 

In 2001 the Milan Dobeš Museum was founded, which houses not only works by Dobeš but also by those close to him in the spirit of constructivism and op-art, such as Victor Vasarely, Karel Malich and Radoslav Kratina. In 2016 a Milan Dobeš Museum was opened in Ostrava, at which the artist himself participated.

Milan Dobeš, ed.: Jozef Ruttkay, Bratislava 1994 MAURERY M.: Milan Dobeš: Medzi pohybom a svetlom, magisterská diplomová práce, Masarykova Univerzita, Brno 2016 JÚZA J.: Milan Dobeš: Pulsing emotions, katalog výstavy, Ostrava 2009 HLAVÁČEK J.: Neokonstruktivismus a kinetismus, in: České dějiny výtvarného umění IV/1, 1958–2000, Praha 2007, 207–220 HAVRÁNEK V.: Kinetické umění, in: Akce, slovo, pohyb, prostor: experimenty v umění šedesátých let, GHMP, Praha 1999, str. 64 – 111 HLAVÁČEK J.: Poezie racionality, České muzeum výtvarného umění, Praha 1993 HLAVÁČEK J.: Jiná geometrie, katalog výstavy, Mánes, Praha 1991 PADRTA J.: Nová citlivost, katalog výstavy, Mánes, Praha 1968

KLIVAR M.: Kinetické umění v architektuře, in: Československý architekt, 1990, č. 2, s. 8 KOSTROVÁ Z.: Rozhovor s Milanem Dobešem o Bienále sochárstva ve volnej prírode v Montevideu, in: Výtvarná práce, 1979, č. 25–26, str. 1, 6 KONEČNÝ D.: K současnému stavu a perspektivám kinetismu a umění nové reality u nás, in: Acta scaenographica VI, 1966, č. 11, s. 219 – 220. CHALUPECKÝ J.: Milan Dobeš, in: Výtvarná práce XIV, 1966, č. 16, s. 5

O dynamickém konstruktivismu, 1988 Světlo jako výtvarný materiál, 1973 O světle a pohybu, 1961