Juraj Bartusz

Biography

At the age of twelve Juraj Bartusz narrowly survived the detonation of a land mine during the war. Gravely injured, he considered himself fortunate: many children from his village were killed in the fighting.

He was born on 23 October 1933 in the village of Kamenín, in the Nové Zámky District, the son of a mason. He studied in Prague from 1951: first at a school of applied arts, then at the College of Applied Arts under Josef Wagner and Jan Kavan, and afterwards at the Academy of Fine Arts under Karel Pokorný and Karel Hladík. The sources differ on the dates: by some accounts his academy course ended in 1961, by others he graduated in 1963. In Prague he met the sculptor Mária Bartuszová; they married in 1961 and, after his studies, settled in Košice. Bartusz remained there for the rest of his life. His job in the publicity department of the East Slovak Ironworks did not last long: he disliked promotion work and decided to live as an independent artist. Yet the ironworks figure in another part of his story: together with František Patočka he founded the international symposia of metal sculptors that the works held in 1967 and 1968.

From 1967 he exhibited with the Club of Concretists, led by the art historian Arsen Pohribny. In the 1960s and early 1970s Bartusz developed abstract geometry in space: bent aluminium sheets, then sculptures on the theme of space and cosmonautics, among them “Head of a Cosmonaut” and the time-space sculptures in cut or cast aluminium. During and after the symposia he made large works for public places in Košice: “Gate of the Cosmonauts” (1966) in the Podhradová housing estate, “Homage to Gagarin” (1976–1979) in the Šaca district, and a bronze monument to the painter Július Jakoby (1977–1980) on Alžbetina Street. “The Constellation of the Great Bear” was officially removed in 1978; the “Space Gate” now stands at the entrance to the Technical University. With the architect Pavol Merjavý he made the monument to the Krompachy Revolt.

After 1968 Bartusz took part in underground art circles: clandestine exhibitions and meetings that the State Security kept under watch, and whose participants were interrogated. In 1973 he was questioned for showing works in Hungary without permission, since they had not passed the ideological commission. He named the principle of his practice thus: established rules must be broken, otherwise one stays standing in one place.

In 1972, with the programmer Vladimír Haltenberger, he began computer art. The first designs were chosen from random series of curves, and from these curves rotating, human-like sculptures were built.

In the 1980s he turned to the factor of time: he made time-limited paintings and drawings and shaped works with forceful blows, throwing bricks into solidifying plaster or slamming the material with planks and rubber straps. To my mind, the gesture matters more here than the result, and the 2010 exhibition at the Slovak National Gallery was itself called “Gestures / Body / Seconds”.

From 1990 to 1999 he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. In 1992 he was appointed professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where he had once studied. In 1999 he became one of the founders of the department of visual arts and intermedia at the Technical University of Košice and headed its 3D Studio of Free Creativity there. Among his solo exhibitions were the retrospectives of 1992 in Banská Bystrica, Košice and Žilina. In 2004 he received the Munkácsy Prize, and in 2024 the president of Slovakia, Zuzana Čaputová, awarded him the Order of Ľudovít Štúr, 2nd class.

Bartusz died in Košice on 25 September 2025.