Vittoria Coen

"Since a long time I am convinced that it is the people and the artists of Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans who perceive the attractive power of real images in a more intense and peculiar way.

In the case of Milan Kunc real does not mean realistic and objective. It is rather a synonym of imaginary and the apparent paradox shouldn't mislead .anybody. The more an image seems, though with childish ingenuity, already seen, known and real, the more magically does it turn into a somewhat dreamlike, fairy-tale, absurd unreality. A Tuscan landscape with hills and a castle (Kunc stayed in Tuscany for some time and a Renaissance vein can be traced in his paintings), sunny afternoons and «square» holidays, a tourist bus and the Coliseum in the background are only some of the merry protagonists of the artist's vision, very much alive and seductive in their colour combinations, in their constant incredibility and hyperrealism, the fruits of an absolute, diligent descriptive act.

 The variety, one might say the eclecticism, of sources that cease to be so turning into mere allusions but never into mechanical transpositions, suggests an ironical reading. There is a lack, for example, of chromatic orgies, of rigorous observation of rules: Kunc breaks with every too rigid stylistic koine.

During the exploration of different worlds that stimulate the artist's curiosity, contemporary scenography has met and interacted with the characters of pop, the labyrinth-like movement of the object's cult and its understatement, which Kunc approaches like a smooth flier who ignores every boundary. What was already clear in the paintings becomes even more evident in the sculptures. Especially the ceramics, which Kunc uses often, achieve masterful effects, and comply astonishingly well with the straightforward communication that accompanies Kunc's expression of associations, reminiscences, images that were perceived, preserved and reborn in a playful kaleidoscope where nothing is taken for granted and that surprises for its pleasant multitude of forms. In one sculpture, ceramics is accompanied by metal (Power Flower), but more often it is ceramics and majolica that lend their plastic availability to a wave (Wave!), to a very vigorous still life (Vegetable), to another explicitly cubistic one (Cubistic Still Life with Worm). A tower of Pisa more leaning than ever overhangs delicious-looking foodstuffs (Pisa). The exotic subject is rendered with a more geometrical and stylised approach. But I think that also the ethnic and archaic subject is rendered in an uninhibited way, with an efficient balance between the archaic and the plain geometrical dimension that asserts itself with the intense and elegant game of colours (Idol). In Kunc there is an evident stream of conscience that unfolds without any stylistic or existentialist drama in a very peculiar narration. A very brilliant and vivid way to witness one's own age."

Vittoria Coen