Ján Berger was born in Třinec, Czechoslovakia in 1944. A graduate of the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts and the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (under Ján Mudroch in 1962), his personal trajectory was not straightforward. His birth certificate was produced by the Nazi regime – he defines it as a ‘museum document’ – and he lived through the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, when it came to building an (artistic) identity, this complicated trajectory and past have had unforeseen but beneficial consequences on Berger’s approach to his work. His personal experience has led him to trade a romantic sense of passion (he describes himself as a more passionate smoker than he is a devoted painter) for a more pragmatic and realistic mode of envisioning art. This grounded philosophy has taught him the benefits of compromise and adaptability. Hence, his appreciation for the banal. Indeed, Berger digests the reality around him through the lens of his personal experience, which in turn fuels his creativity and informs his artistic process. His method, which relies on the field of colour as the prism through which fragmentary information is combined, is time-consuming. Interestingly, despite colour’s central role and place in his process, Berger cannot quite put into words why colour’s ‘temperature, softness or roughness, and perhaps angularity’ inspire him more than any other creative element. This chromatic reflection manifests these motifs in a personal dichotomy between still life (interior space) and landscape (exterior space). Rather than opposing, Berger reconciles these genres by manoeuvring at the outskirts, on the edges of both. He favours ‘sideways movements, deflections and twists’ over simplistic contrast. Accordingly, he conceives of landscapes as still lifes and vice versa.
In 1974, Berger organised his first solo exhibition at the Nitra Gallery. This show opened the door to many other opportunities throughout Slovakia, such as exhibitions in Bratislava, Nitra, Senica, Trenčín, Banská Bystrica and Martin.
Berger also assumed academic responsibilities for which he is well known, appreciated and respected in his native country. In 1987, he was asked to take charge of a painting studio at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, which he led until 2008.
Berger’s first retrospective exhibition took place in 2000 at the City Gallery in Bratislava.
