The exhibition Eighties: Signal IV, on view at the Telegraph Gallery until March 20, traces the artistic manifestations of the 1980s. At the time, the most important artistic endeavours were taking place outside the official scene. The visual language of selected artists responded to social pressures and global impulses, and new approaches to the medium of image, object and performance were taking shape. Through articles on specific works and artists, we also want to bring the atmosphere and cultural context of this time into focus.
Květa Válová (1922-1998) is a fundamental figure of Czech painting of the second half of the 20th century and the main representative of the New Figuration. She briefly devoted herself to structural painting, but soon turned away from it and embraced the figure. She spent most of her life with her sister Jitka in Kladno in a working-class environment, which influenced the work of both artists. The sisters were very close in both their personal and artistic lives and both studied at the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Prague under Prof. Emil Filla. From 1958, the sisters' works began to appear in exhibitions of the Trasa art group. Květa Válová also participated in several dozen collective and solo exhibitions. The last large collective exhibition was held in 2000 at the Trade Fair Palace of the National Gallery, which unfortunately the artist did not live to see.
Květa Valová's Signal IV: The Eighties features the work Waiting (1986). The work is dominated by two massive human figures of a man and a woman, probably from the working class. The woman has her palms placed in front of her mouth, symbolizing fear or even dismay, whereas the male figure has a static detached expression with apparent disinterest or resignation. Both figures convey a strong psychological undercurrent of the times in which both subjects lived - i.e., fear of possible changes that may not turn out as expected (the woman) and loss of hope for a better future (the man).
The color palette of the painting is muted with undertones of gray and blue that emphasize the figures' alienation not only from each other but from the separate nature of humanity. In the context of contemporary society, the work can be seen as a kind of stagnation in a dysfunctional political system that has slowly come to the point of disintegration. The melancholic tinge of the painting also refers to the fragility of human existence, which is enhanced by the uncertainty of the time in which the painting was created and in which the characters are waiting to see how society will evolve.
