‘TENSION’ a solo exhibition by Jan Kaláb at BC Gallery, Berlin

A couple of weeks ago opened Czech visual artist Jan Kaláb his newest solo show at BC Gallery in Berlin, presenting a completely new body of work created for the occasion.
“TENSION”, which consists of a series of eight round canvases and one spherical sculpture, deals with Jan Kaláb’s artistic and stylistic development through the years. Coming from a classic graffiti background and being one of the pioneers of Eastern European graffiti in the early 90‘s, his work represents a summary of all his experiences during those years where he finally found the path to abstraction, a path he has been exploring through canvas since 2007.
Characteristic of his work is the use of circles or spheres and a bright colour palette. His compositions are easy to identify, playing the concept of Tension a central role. From the press release:
“Using the circle or sphere as a boarder and a strongly defined color palette for composition, tension is created by what is inside and outside the circle. There is always a main color that makes up most of the space that all other colors have to abide to. Tension defined through colors and form. Choosing to show eight round canvases and one spherical sculpture creates tension between the dimensions. As earth is a sphere itself, holding a lot of tension from the beginning of evolution, the shape of the works and the title of the show go naturally hand in hand to display the tension surrounding us in our everyday world.”

About the Artist
Czech artist Jan Kaláb, who was born in 1978 and therefore grew up under a regime in which the performance of graffiti was totally unimaginable, was one of the pioneers who started bringing urban art into Eastern European countries after the borders opened up in the early 90‘s. Starting off as a founder of the DSK crew he made a name for himself throughout Europe as ‚Cakes‘.
Later on, he decided to broaden his horizon and move to New York where he changed his name to ‚Point‘ and started creating huge sculpted abstract letters, which he chose to put up in the streets and on walls. He thereby created another form of graffiti without a spray can, but truthful to the spirit of competition and innovation of the urban scene. These letter sculptures led him to the path of total abstraction, which he also adapted in his paintings and keeps on elaborating since 2007.
After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts of Prague he continuously developed his style and has since then become more and more geometric. He uses colorful squares and circles as his vocabulary for infinite variations around depth, time, and motion. Having gained recognition over the past years, Kaláb is on his way to a promising career as an abstract artist.

The exhibition is open to the public for viewing through January 23rd at BC Gallery located on Libauerstraße 14, 10245 Berlin. Do not miss it!