Sex is an ever-looming theme over the exhibition, if not explicit. As the artist describes the works, he does not shy away from identifying the genitalia that materialize from his abstract forms. Everything is gendered, but ambiguous enough for one to question which is which. A dystopian Altar…? A prominent piece of the installation. Here the conflation of sexual organs and religion is both symbolic and literal. For what reason? It may explain the stone doves often found over tombstones within the exhibition. These doves are the same species and family as the pigeon, but almost always thought to be representative of purity, innocence, and peace. While the pigeon is often cast aside as a nuisance, a carrier of disease. Hladik questions how we can venerate one and dishonor another, essentially the same bird, one is virgin white, untainted by the sullying grey and iridescent breast. The white represents the religious purity, an element only identifiable due to the binary dirtiness that it must define itself against. The video of pigeons fighting conveys the violence inherent in reproduction. Hladík connects the problematic issue of sex with religion to question how these two elements co-exist and operate beside each other. Within cultural and historical contexts, this scene of the “peaceful” creature violently fighting is oxymoronic.

Wall works beckon the viewer inwards to approach their multi-layered drawings. Peering inside the pink exterior, one sees diagrams of muscle tissue. Hladík wants to turn the inside outwards, to investigate how our core concepts and values operate, and to critically assess how complacent traditions have formed our contemporary society. Large pink membranes stretch across the show to preface the abstract works. These act as backgrounds and foregrounds for the show, as everything involves this almost obnoxious pink colour. The hyper sexualization of the art object, the animal, and religious imagery, act as a starting point to start understanding the show. But it ceases there. No final solutions are given. Just as the best endings are those that let the viewer decide what happens, Hladík lets us ponder on how these core values influence each other, and have dominated (outwardly or invisibly) our current societal state.

Stretched thinly across are pink materials, mimicking a skin membrane. These bookmark and contain the inner most scene, doing away with white walls. Surrounded, the viewer experiences everything as if within a body or inner cloister. There is an intimacy here, with the highly dramatic lights that illuminate each work. Yet peering down at us are Hladík’s hyper-abstracted gargoyles. Gargoyles are primarily used to spout water coming down from church roofing, helping stop the eroding process of the mortar walls. Hladík instead removes their utility to instead question what these forms mean. Ambiguity is an important aspect for Gargoyles, and his title works are no different. Are these forms sexual? Threatening? Religious? Once again these queries are invoked but mostly kept open. These neon deities are the culmination of his practice, existing to remain a quandary.

The entire gallery has been transformed into Hladík’s personal chamber, a space where animal veneration and augmentation mesh together to have each viewer come to their own conclusions about the works. The body, both animal and human, are questioned about their co-existence. But overall, there is no single “punchline”, no one-liner that can easily explain Gargoyles. Hladík has defiantly opted to present a deeper, more engrossing experience that requires more time to settle. In a society where everything is faster and more digestible every day, Hladík takes use of the liminal space that the white cube affords. Gargoyles demonstrates that art can and should be difficult, that way the reward for understanding becomes that much sweeter.

Mathew Kyba
Toronto
October 20, 2016