Svetozár Ilavský was born in Bratislava in 1958. He studied monumental painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava between 1979 and 1985. There, he developed his artistic arsenal, which includes painting, drawing, graphic design, sculpture, architectural work, scenography and multimedia projects, especially in connection with electro-acoustic music. In general, he takes great inspiration from musical composition and those who experimented with it (like John Cage). Despite profiting from this enriching environment, Ilavský describes himself as mainly self-taught.
Through his experimentations, alongside Laco Teren, Ivan Csudai and Stano Bubán, Ilavský participated in the emergence of postmodern practices in Slovakia, more specifically the transavantgarde which, like Junge Wilde (Young Wild Ones) in Germany, refocused on artistic mediums to challenge the lessons of conceptualism. Although his corpus was not among the most visible at the time, it is now among the best remembered. Intuition and improvisation play an important methodological role in Ilavský’s creative process. Artworks and their directions feed off each other, build or deviate in an organic manner that Ilavský does not seek to overly control. He has divided the resulting corpus into various sub-sections: WHEN I AM ALONE AT HOME – PLEONASMUS – PARTITIONS AND INTERMEDIA PROJECTS – CHRISTOLOGICAL THEMES, PER PENDERECKY – CREATION FOR ARCHITECTURE. He has used balance, or the lack thereof, as an underlying principle throughout his artistic career.
In terms of scale, Ilavský is fascinated with monumental formats and regularly uses scaffolding to paint. The gigantism allows him to reappropriate, and perhaps even dominate, exhibition spaces in galleries and museums where small pieces, in his opinion, get drowned in whiteness.
An infamous and slightly controversial public commission depicting Julius Satinsky constitutes Ilavský’s main legacy in his hometown of Bratislava. The artwork, a shiny abstract representation, has been interpreted mostly as a wheeled vehicle, either a bicycle or a motorcycle, although Ilavský has described it as ‘a walking table with a folded tablecloth, on which a bust of Julius Satinský is built’.
He has had solo exhibits in a number of cities including: Bratislava (1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2002, 2006, and 2008), Vienna (1990), Prague (1991 and 1997), Frankfurt am Main (1991), Munich (1991), and Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain (1992 and 1995).
Ilavský works and lives in Cífer, Slovakia.
