Tomáš RAJLICH: From Immediate Proximity

The extreme intensity of painterly modernism excelled on a global scale in the 1970s with the exhibition Fundamental Painting at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (25 April 1975 – 22 June 1975), which included Rajlich among 18 American and European artists (Robert Ryman, Agnes Martin, Robert Mangold, Gerhard Richter and others). Rajlich's work of the 1970s and the work of his contemporaries, in its maximalist aestheticism, in a way concludes the modernist artistic development that began during the second half of the 19th century; however, the intention and artistic capacity of these tendencies were far from exhausted.

This is demonstrated precisely by Rajlich's further development, defined not only by an extension of colour but also by a certain detachment and post-conceptual playfulness, with which he also accepts chromatically unrestrained "readymade" materials in his work.

It is possible to argue whether the emphasis on reduction, intellectual potential and aesthetic minimalism caused a certain rift between the audience and the artists in the 1970s; in any case, however, it was clear that this artistic phase was not only an artistic necessity but also a period whose legacy, still alive after all, we constantly return to. And not out of a need for historical reconnaissance, but owing to the surprising discovery of its effectiveness, quality, intellectual brilliance and abstract expressive power. And as Rajlich shows, it is still possible to work with this material as with current and living art.

Rajlich's work is represented in many public collections, for example: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Gemeentemuseum (today Kunstmuseum) The Hague, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam, Museum of Modern Art in New York, MNAM/Centre Pompidou in Paris, SMAK in Ghent, National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, National Gallery Prague. From 1999 to 2002, Rajlich was a guest artist in the studios of MNAM/Centre Pompidou in Paris. Since 2010, he has lived and worked in Prague and in Italy near Lake Garda.

Martin Dostál