An exhibition of Ján Berger’s work is taking place for the second time in Senica – the first took place thirty years ago (1995), also at the Záhorie Gallery. The current selection is dominated by works created after 2000. Conceived as a retrospective, the exhibition presents larger-format paintings such as Mythical Scenes. The curator of the exhibition Continuum at the Bratislava City Gallery, Xénia Lettrichová, noted that these works embody the essential qualities and building blocks of Berger’s art. She emphasized color, about which she said: “Color in his hands is a changeable state of matter, ranging from an autonomous phenomenon to a representational medium.”

Berger’s work often includes stand-alone pieces, several of which are featured in this selection. Among them are larger paintings such as Such a World, Duo, and Under the Angel, as well as the nearly self-portrait-like Brass Plaque. The body of work reveals a rich spectrum of complex themes and interwoven motifs. As Ján Abelovský once remarked in a review of Berger’s exhibition, the painter is a “lavish magician.” It is also important to note that Berger’s painting never strays far from the natural world—whether landscapes both near as well as far and transformed, or human and animal figuration in their varied formal guises.

In the catalogue of Berger’s monographic exhibition at the Slovak National Gallery in 2018, curator Nina Gažovičová delved deeper into the uniqueness of his work. She wrote: “…As if invention and imagination had become a despised and outdated state in the 20th and 21st centuries. As if the power of pure painterly expression, which for centuries preserved for humanity seemingly trivial yet intensely meaningful moments, had been forgotten. Berger (1944), even today, in the post-internet era, embodies what keeps painting alive. He proves that even now it can awaken in people the desire to partake in the mediated beauty of life and the world…”

Xénia Bergerová