I.B. Kráľ

„With authors, the detail is important, because the answer is often hiding within it.“ Ivan Baláž Kráľ is a representative of the Autenta movement in literature and art. He was born on the 3rd of August as a descendant of the medieval noble house Balas de Villa Bala.

The mountain and meadows around a little village of Ondrášovce gave creation to the poet and artist within him. On the heights of Ondrášovce, as he says „there were no fences around“. Free and open-minded. … in flight, feet barely touching the ground, „where the places are sacred…“   Whistling towards the clouds, with a cheeky expression and a straw grass in his mouth. That is him – the one who writes images and paints stories.

THE DISCOVERY

For a poet, school is suffering and life is a burden. In the beginning I. B. Kráľ walks in his father’s footsteps. He studies Highway and Bridge Design at the Secondary Technical School of Civil Engineering in Prešov (1992 – 1996). Here he gains projection and design skills, but most importantly solid technical and artistic drawing abilities. He is strongly influenced by his art professor, artist and architect Eva Prokopovičová. The young artist arrives to her studio and gallery in Solivar in Prešov. Prokopovičová is precise and faithfull to the techniques of the old masters, Da Vinci and Michelangelo in particular. Here I. B. Kráľ studies classical drawing, but at this time he already knows that he wants to express himself in a different way. He meets a generation of older artists and observes their means of expression, but he finds them to be provincial. however, he finds an interest in the art of sculptor Dušan Pončák, and under his influence he dedicates himself to clay sculpture. Clay is an amazing material and I. B. Kráľ discovers within it a medium on which he shifts his focus for a long time.

During his secondary school student practice he works in the studio and on the building sites of his father’s cousin, architect Miroslav Macejko. He is strongly influenced by Macejko’s views on architecture. At his building sites, with a shovel in his hand, he realises that transforming two lines on a blueprint into reality involves genuine effort, so he starts to cultivate his work with material and space. It results in hundreds of spatial concept designs of minimalist housing units, as well as concepts of larger objects. He also prepares complete blueprints for the reconstruction of the family cabin.  „While grammar school students were out drinking in pubs, we technical school students were spending our nights with year-long assignments, blueprints and tracing papers… with calculators and hands constantly stained from leaking fountain pens.“ Fine (mostly functionalist) architecture and design becomes a standard of quality for I. B. Kráľ in a broader visual context.

Despite the technical and artistic direction of his studies, he struggles with a childhood desire to become a priest. He spends his nights, however, reading the works of S. Freud and the Existencialists. At technical school his worldview and further interest in philosophy begins to develop. Under the influence of professor Vitkovičová, his teacher of history, psychology and civic education, he decides not to become a priest in the end. He does, however, choose theology as a scientific discipline (Ars Sacra) to be the subject of his further studies.

While studying Theology and Ethics at the Comenius University in Bratislava he obtains a deeper philosophical education. There he meets a generation of professors, who had returned from exile, and who had been active at foreign universities in Germany, Italy, Austria, USA, France…  The atmosphere at the faculty is tremendously stimulating and qualitatively incomaparble with the standards of Slovak higher education. Here I. B. Kráľ  fully immerses himself in his studies.  He graduates at the Department of Church History. In conjunction with philosophy he focuses his attention on history of the Ars Sacra. He becomes adept in identifying the nuances of sacral art (1997 – 2002, MA).  However, he is also interested in personal history, and so for three years he spends his free time in the archives.  With the help of his professors he translates hundreds of latin and hungarian documents, some of which he uses in his thesis „From the history of Franciscans in Prešov“. Paradoxically, at the Faculty of Theology I. B. Kráľ diverts his attention from sacrum to profanum. He reads S. W. Hawking and starts to see the world, the universe and himself through physics.

As his perception of the world changes, so does his artistic and literary style. He realizes the need to obtain education in the history of art and architecture. He enrolls to study history at the Faculty of Theology in Košice (2004 – 2007, MA), and focuses on the history of art. He graduates his studies with a thesis about the „The Architecture and Art of the Church and Convent of OFM in Presov in the background historical context”. His tutor is professor Cyril Hišem, who graduated his doctoral studies in Vienna. Professor Hišem gives the young scholar of fine art, who is transforming into an art theoretician, plenty of space, and so the thesis of high quality is later published abroad as a collection of studies. While studying the old, mostly baroque art and architecture he realises that he wants to shift his focus on the modern and contemporary art, which is reflected also in his personal artistic expression.

Following the example of A. Warhol he is also interested in graphic design, in particular the means of expression used in advertising. His doctoral studies are focused on advertising and marketing, and he completes them at Tadeusz Zasępa’s Department of Journalism at the Catholic University in Ružomberok (2005 – 2008, PhD.). He defends a difficult dissertation „The influence of advertising on the behaviour of consumers“, and its research section recieves a positive feedback, particularly abroad.  I. B. Kráľ establishes himself as a scientist, university teacher and a marketing specialist, and he works in these positions at various workplaces, often at the same time. After a number of professionally and personally difficult years he feels tired, and his health suddenly worsens, which causes him to stop working. To spend the time well he starts studying in Poland. He finishes his studies with a thesis „The Marketing Survey of the Advertisement Market“ at the Legnica University of Management, Faculty of Management and Marketing (2014 – 2016, MA). In Poland he simultaneously continues to study clinical psychology, which had always been his hobby. He experiments with a secondary identity on social media, conducts a large-scale research of advertisement and studies the behavior of respondents hidden behind anonymous profiles.

The education of the poet and artist was not, however, idyllic from the beginning. At eighteen he abandons his first university studies at the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. Thanks to his high school psychology lessons he finds work as a social worker at the Catholic Charity in Prešov (1996 – 1998 GKDCH). These two years of his life are devoted to the poor, the needy, the homeless, the alcoholics and the drug addicts. This experience leaves a strong impression on the young artist, and changes his outlook on life. It also changes his soft literary language and writing. The enviroment full of new stimuli gives him a chance to verify Freuds studies that he had read. Jung and Adler seem to him to be on the weak side compared to the hard reality of the homeless and the drug addicted. He claims himself to be a Freudist. He goes through a personal self analysis and comes to accept his sexuality. He uses the experience gained from the enviroment of the socially excluded individuals as a young journalist in the local press (1996), to which he later returns as a publicist and a blogger.

The government accords him an exception, which allows him to start teaching at elementary schools in Prešov (1998 – 2005). Already in the previous year he completed his observation period and sporadically taught as a substitute teacher. The work as a teacher allows him to write and paint more, but most importantly to create clay sculptures. In the elementary school enviroment he establishes a literature and drama students group. He writes his own original plays for the young actors. He also opens the first school literature club „Litera“, edits the school magazine „In“ and leads a school choir with a chamber music ensemble. The students are honest and often harsh critics of his work, but they like him. The young poet gives back to them what he learned when he was a student from his teachers in art school lessons and private courses.

The idyll of a young teacher is interrupted by a fellow native of Ondrašovce, assistant professor Imrich Vaško. He used to privately lecture the young creator on literary theory and verse at the faculty of philosophy in Prešov until he was seventeen years old.  Vaško invites I. B. Kráľ to Ružomberok, to the newly-founded Catholic University. The young poet, hovewer, declines the invitation. He doesn’t feel ready. As a liberal, he doesn’t find the strictly conservative enviroment to be welcoming and continues to teach and create in Prešov. In 2000 he publishes his debut poetry collection „BÁSNE živé i mŕtve“ (POEMS live and dead). In it he presents his early high-school attempts at poetry, which he had created since childhood. The book is very succesful despite its subpar quality, and the first issue is sold out within half a year. The poet, however, feels like these are not the themes and the style, in which he wants to express himself, and refuses to prepare a second issue of the book. He begins to loathe his literary „child“. The poet considers the book to be a disgrace because of formal mistakes, as well as because of the themes and overall content. During this period he already writes in a different style, even though the „poeta natus“ somewhere within him refuses to come to terms with the form. Vaško, however, is strict, and after each lesson he fills the young creator’s arms with more and more books, saying „ … you need to read this one, and that one as well… And this one would also be advisable…“

Catholic modernism is however too simplistic when it comes to the means of expression for the young poet, who identifies with J. A. Rimbaud, and he finds it to be constantly revolving around the same synthetic themes. He enjoys reading translations of ancient greek literature and poetry of V. Turčány, and even more he enjoys J. Kostra and most importantly Ivan Štrpka, whose poetry he discovers through the music of Dežo Ursíny. As well as the classical ancient literature he mostly reads french poets like G. Apollinaire, T. de Banville, Ch. Baudelaire, A. Breton, J. Cocteau, C. de Lautréamont, S. Mallarmé, J. Prévert, J. N. A. Rimbaud, B. Vian, F. Villon, Voltaire… As time goes on he collects a fine library of poetry and modern art. Most of all he indentifies with J. Rimbaud however, and he doesn’t even realise, how much they have in common.

Everything is revealed during a poetry reading in a small café Kamala in Martin. The reading was organised by the literature club Optimum from Martin, led by a young writer and a student of I. B. Kráľ from the department of journalism, Michal Badin. During a discussion after the reading the literary critic Peter Mišák stood up and asked: „you see it all in colour, don’t you?“. And thus the secret was out. As I. B. Kráľ writes: „He completely revealed me and found out that I see rhyme and assonance as colours, waves and codes. I felt like I was naked… exposed. I had a feeling as if everybody knew my secret. The only thing I managed to say was to admit: „Yes“.“ This secret was, along with other hardships in life, a burden to be shared by the poetry of both I. B. Kráľ and of J. N. A. Rimbaud.

With a generous help from Marta Skalkova, the director of the P. O. Hviezdoslav Library in Prešov, he establishes a literary club „Manu fecit“, where he helps young writers and organises author reading events. He himself gives author readings of his own poetry at the Small scene of the Alexander Duchnovič Theatre, a meeting space of authors mostly from the University of Prešov. An important moment in I. B. Kráľ’s career is the opening of his first studio on Levočská street, where he works every day, and where young artists come to visit him. While he’s working he forgets about the time, about day and night… „ …a couple of times I even forgot my professional duties and missed a lecture that I was supposed to give to students… They understood this artistic immersion, but my superiors at the University did not…“  In the studio he paints from live models. The audience „likes“ the sketches, his abstract paintings, however, stay ununderstood. Just like the codes, which he begins to use in his writing and art.

During this period, the art and writings of I. B. Kráľ are strongly influenced by Art Cinema. „We were sitting in the film club on the old, scuffed and torn seats every Tuesday, gazing at the screen like we were addicted to it. The Film Viewers Club was a temple, where we devoted ourselves to the most important works of cinema from around the world. We learned how to understand the disparate aspects of visual representation and means of expression. Of course, we were novices and it would take us years until we were able to decode the pieces of the puzzle.“

In 2003 he publishes his second collection of poetry, „Básne bara ex nihilo“. Similarly to his first literary child, shortly after publishing he starts to loathe this book as well. He suffers, when he has to read from it at the author readings, and changes it on purpose – reinterpreting and „updating“ individual verses. In addition to that, he notices a strange phenomenon: When he publishes a book, his personal relationship ends. He starts to percieve this irrational misgiving, which comes true with each following book, as a programme.

Further education of I. B. Kráľ is directed by the arrival of professor Tadeusz Zasępa, a world-renowned expert in the field of mass media (The United Cultural Convention of the USA, comprised of prestigious universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and others, nominates Zasępa for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.) „Man of the Year“ chooses I. B. Kráľ as a doctoral student and assistant at the Department of Journalism during a selection procedure in 2005. The young artist has a chance to gain an understanding of the operation of visual media – particularly advertising, which fascinates him. He had observed the world of advertising for the first time in 1998 at the private graphic design studio of his fathers cousin, designer Jaroslav Baláž. Arkus Studio had worked on advertising campaigns for the first retail chain stores, that had entered the Czechoslovak market after the November revolution of 1989. Arkus Studio had already been using Macintosh computers from Apple at that time, and that gave the young artist a look into the relatively new world of computer graphic design.

A small apartment in Ružomberok consisted of an anteroom, a bathroom and a small kitchen connected with a bedroom. It becomes the artists second studio and a meeting place of young artists, which can also be said about a small „house of art“ in Jelence street, where he sometimes resides. Ružomberok does not impress I. B. Kráľ very much. The city is quite sleepy at that time. It only comes alive with students and workers from nearby towns, who flow in and out during the day. At the university he acts as an assistant to professor Zasępa and to the nestor of Slovak journalism, professor Andrej Tušer. Aside from university he is fascinated by two things. His warm relationship with the work of artist Ľudovít Fulla grows even stronger. Fulla’s works, together with the art of Mikuláš Galanda form the fundamental idea of his own artistic work. The second thing, which fascinates him from its heights, are the mountains.  Sidorovo hill overlooking the village of Vlkolínec and a mountain called Šíp above the hidden hamlet of Podšíp are places, where he often goes hiking in any weather or season. The figuralist I. B. Kráľ finds the best relaxation away from people – in the mountains, in a true „landscapist plein air“. Every morning he runs to Hrabovo. He often goes to the cemetery to visit the grave of the culturologist L. Hanus, whose texts he reads, despite a difference in opinions. He can often be seen writing and drawing while sitting on a bench next to the tomb of Ľudovít Fulla. The serenity of the cemetery inspires him to act, and the feeling of finality which it radiates urges him to work, which is neverending. And then there are Vaško and Zasępa.

Zasępa inspires the poet not only in scientific matters, in which he demands preparation and professional quality. He also forms him on a personal level and gives him a space to grow. Vaško supports his poetic talent. Together they lead the Literary club of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic University, and Vaško presents him with opportunities at events of the L. Hanus Scientific Institute. He disagrees with them on various topics. Often there is a clash of their contrasting conservative and liberal viewpoints. However, I. B. Kráľ considers their cooperation to be tremendously productive. He understands that the world is not divided into conservatives and liberals, but instead into people who are capable, those less fortunate and ultimately people who are capable of anything. His third book „Súmrak – kar múz“ (Twilight – The Funeral Feast of Muses, 2006), which, like his paintings of that time, contain codes and suggests a new direction. Despite this, the book shares the same fate as the previous ones. The poets personal relationship ends and the book falls into disgrace in his eyes. The issue of only 500 copies is sold out within two months, and so begins a search for new categories of expression.

During this period he exhanges letters with poet Svetloslav Weigl and he also meets „a being from his world“. With Katarína Habovštiaková, who could be his grandmother, they become very close. Their conversations last for many hours, and Katarína attempts to cultivate the language of the young bohemian. At one of the meetings of christian writers at Spišská Kapitula, she tells him: „Young man… you should not write, your poetry is prophetic.“ Just like the bony hands of „the being from my world“ that clutch the arm of the young man, that sentence forces its way into the inner world of the poet. Its strength is magnified by the surroundings, as it reverberates below the gothic arches of the St. Martin Cathedral. At this meeting I. B. Kráľ also gives a lecture to the audience about the contemporary literature, which resonates well with the authors and linguists. He accompanies the kindred being („from his world“) on her way out of the cathedral. Here he catches a breath again and the spell of the prophecy fades away. He visits Katarína once more in Bratislava, and then she is no more… no more prophecies, no more long conversations without a single redundant word. The young artist gets stuck in a whirlwind of responsibilities, and life guides him wherever it wants.

His futher studies are dedicated to the research of media and advertising. He establishes and leads a non-formal art and marketing company AREIOS PAGOS (1999 – 2012), focused on fundraising and marketing activities in the art community. In 2006 he and his friends establish SLOGANY.SK, offering mostly textual advertisting services and consultance in advertising for small and medium businesses. During doctoral studies he completes various managerial interships, most important of which is a cooperation at the Marketing department of the ING group insurance company in Bratislava.  He realises he has the chance to use the contacts he established with the large scale clients, and tries to create a full-service advertising agency „2B (to be) Advertising“. His plans are, however, complicated by the economic recession of 2009, and he is unable to get the agency running despite securing the funds. He is therefore forced to leave the project of an advertising agency, which cost him so much effort and resources, abandoned. Instead, he devotes all of his time to art.

After graduating his doctoral studies he works at the Faculty of Mass Media Communication at the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava as an Assistant Professor – Lecturer in the field of advertising (2009 – 2011). He teaches the Psychology of advertising, Psychology and sociology of mass media and Advertisement production. He jumps on an oportunity provided to him by Slavomír Magál. Toghether they start an annual catalogue of art MUUZA, and I. B. Kráľ becomes its first editor-in-chief (2009 – 2010). MUUZA becomes one of central Europe’s most important, but also most expensive annual catalogues. In Trnava he forms a friendship with Tibor Huszár, a world class photographer. Huszár enriches MUUZA with experience from New York, Paris… During discussions and arguments with Huszár I. B. Kráľ fine-tunes his refined visual outlook. As he states: „ …and I started to see“. Under the influence of T. Huszár he buys a Leica camera and starts to do photography. I. B. Kráľ lives a life of an urban resident of Bratislava, Vienna and Brno. In each of them he takes in a different atmosphere, and he comes to his studio at the Main street in Trnava only to paint the already premediated visual ideas.

In Trnava a new visual concept of his work is formed, which he later calls his „Trnava period“. He paints, as if he was looking through a filter. Here his figures are strongly purified into abstract compositions. Frequent visits to the galleries of Vienna, Albertina in particular, come into play. There he contemplates the works of contemporary art with unconcealed admiration. They are at his grasp. Not as essays or books on art history and theory, but as real works of real artists. He starts to travel to see fine art and design. Often he also resides in Prague, where he even gives lectures for a while. From 2012 he teaches advertising production at the Private University College of Economic Studies in Prague. He spends his time wandering the streets of Prague between the antique shops, bazaars and auction houses. He surrounds himself with functionalist design and furniture, completes his collection of contemporary art and extends his library.

From 2010 he simultaneously works also at the International School of Management in Prešov as an Assistant Professor/Lecturer of Advertising, PR and CI creation. Here he also meets his friend, professor Wojciech Slomski, who draws him more into the Polish educational and scientific enviroment. He becomes a co-author and co-sponsor of the accredited university study programme „Theory, direction and services in culture (2012)“. In 2011 his monography „Advertising and the consumer“ is published  in Warszaw. In it he publishes a section of his original research on how the advertising influences the purchases of consumers. He continues with the research of advertising and cooperates with dozens of small and medium size businesses in the field of marketing. He implements the legacy of the life and work of Tomáš Baťa into marketing practice.

This period can be called „Life in the train“. I. B. Kráľ had loved trains since childhood. Now, however, he spends a lot of time in them while travelling between various workplaces – in East and West. In the beginning he uses this time to write and work. The train becomes the birthplace to many of his scientific articles, poems and sketches. After a year on the tracks he is, however, tired beyond measure, and cannot do anything in the train but sleep. He becomes a member of the editorial staff of Spoleczenstwo i Edukacja Miedzynarodowe studia humanistyczne (Legnica – Warszaw, PL), and also a member of the editorial staff of the Culture and Arts Panorama magazine (Ružomberok, SR 2007). He is also a reviewer of the oldest scientific magazine in Slovakia – Questions of Journalism (2009).

He establishes and directs literature clubs in almost all of the cities he works in, and thus teaches a new generation of authors. In Prešov (1996 – 2003, „SMPU“), Ružomberok (2005 – 2008, „LK FF KU“ with dean I. Vaško), again in Prešov (2009 – now „Manu Fecit“) and in Trnava (2009 – 2011 „sharp in the glass“). He becomes a member of Matica Slovenská with a vision for a complete change of the direction of the institute, which proves to be fruitless (Martin, 2010 SR). He publishes dozens of articles on art and science in Slovakia but mostly abroad. In 2012 he is invited to be a member of the board of the scientific magazine Zeszyty Naukowe of the Warsaw University them. Maria Sklodowska-Curie (Warszaw, PL). He is also a member of the Slovak Association of Authors, but because of the circumstances within the association he does not involve himself further. He continues to create artworks, but doesn’t see a reason to exhibit his work. Instead he acts as a curator of exhibitions of other artists. His first art exhibition begins as late as 2013 in the exhibition space of the old metropolitan school in his native Prešov. The exhibition called „B3 – from Postmodern to Autenta“ si a joint project of I. B. Kráľ and his brother, artist Pavol Baláž (PA, Pablo). Also displayed are the works of their fathers’ late cousin, Peter P. Baláž, who tragically died as a young artist. The exhibition displays the visual foundations, on which both of the brothers build in their signature styles. It is also the first exhibition in history to present the Autenta works of art. Despite the fact that the self-taught and strongly independent artist doesn’t like to enter into art associations and societies, he becomes a member of Saatchi Art in Los Angeles, USA.

He is frequently invited to be a member of many degree examination and disertation commisions, as well as to many literature and art events. He is a tutor and a lecturer to dozens of successful authors, to a whole new generation of journalists, marketing specialists and advertising experts. But his active pace demands its toll…. He has to slow down and stop working for some time. He further distances himself and restricts his contact with people, and uses social media to communicate with them. „ …The only thing we own is our time, and it is our own decision, to whom and what do we devote it…“ Due to being overwhelmed with his scientific and consultance work he publishes only sporadically, in the Dotyky magazine.

The next book of poetry is published after a significant gap, hastily in Brno at the end of 2014. „The Screaming Bed“ finally represent what I. B. Kráľ considers to be contemporary literature. But the artist is once again his own strictest critic: „ …To create? And for who?! Nobody reads here anymore…“ The first edition is sold out after less than a month and a large part of it is sent abroad, where they are willing to pay quadruple the retail price for it. In an interview for the RTVS he declines to print more copies or prepare a second edition, saying: „ …my book is not for everyone… there will not be more of them“ The fourth book of poetry again takes with it his personal relationship and the poet creates from nothing in solitude…

After three years (2016) he takes part in a joint exhibition „Memento“ with the members of the „Rescue Art“ society in the gallery of the Double Tiffany hotel in Prešov. One year later (2017) he opens his own individual exhibition „From Postmodern to Autenta II“ at the Slovak Technical Museum in Prešov and also attends the first „Biennale of Contemporary Painting“ in the Caraffka Gallery. In 2018 he participates at the „Pearls of Peace“ Biennale in Pakistan at the invitation of the International Watercolor Society. His reserved stance on displaying his works disrupts the interest of the buyers and audience, particularily abroad. They realise the artistic value and unimitable quality of his work. Despite that his upcoming exhibition in Italy is cancelled, with the reason given that his works are eccentric – de gustibus non est disputandum…

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