An Interview with Juraj Mihalik
Editors note: An Interview Juraj Mihalik is a world famous Slovak ceramicist who has designed all of the ceramics offered by fourart.net. The following is an interview to better acquaint the reader with the history of this artist and to give you a better appreciation for the struggles that he endured to achieve his
goals and make his contribution to the artistic ceramic world.

Editor: Can you tell us when you began your artistic career?
Mihalik: Under communism, during the early 1980s, I worked as a sculptor. All artistic work was controlled by the state and the communistic party. I designed sculptures for cities and other state agencies. This work continued until I began to have troubles with the secret police because I was not willing to join the Union of Artists and did not subscribe to the principals of the Party. After my troubles with the secret police it was clear to me that my sculptor career was finished. I started to look for other ways of earning a living. My credo was "I wanted rather be poor but free". I did not want to get a regular job though -- I thought I had suffered enough to acquire the position of a freelance artist. At that time, I did not know that my searching for alternative modes of existence would open the eyes of a few friends of mine.

Editor: What did you do after in 1983 when you were expelled from the official artist world?
Mihalik: First, I was a manager of some musicians, and then I started to experiment with ceramics. Through my contacts, I had heard about the idea of pouring liquid clay into plaster molds to form ceramic objects. I decided to try this my self and after many experiments I managed to create a small pot for cacti. Since it was illegal for me to be an entrepreneur in 1983, I had to figure out a way for my work to be acceptable to the regime. Since the only
private businesses during that period were the sale of flowers, fruits and vegetables, I came up with an idea. I persuaded the local authorities to give me permission to produce and sell flowerpots ceramics in the town market place in the same place as the flower vendors. At the beginning the authorities were opposed, saying that only fruit, vegetables and flowers can be sold there. Finally they admitted that flowers needed flowerpots. Together with my friend, we rented a room with an old ceramics kiln in a mansion in a mountainous part of Bratislava called Koliba. In terrible conditions, through heaps of snow in winter we pushed sleighs with tons of clay down a steep hill. It was even harder to pull the finished products uphill, but the hope of profit gave us courage.

Editor: Were you successful with this effort?
Mihalik: On our first Saturday morning in the marketplace, I had very mixed feelings but at the end of the day, when we began to sell flowerpots for about 150 crowns (9 US Dollars in 1983) our spirits were elevated. Our friends predicted the market for flowerpots will be saturated within one year but we
did not give up. Eventually we produced several thousandflower pots and people bought all we could produce. I fondly remember this marketplace period. I had never had such a direct contact with people before. It was a beautiful feeling watching the happy eyes of housewives looking over and choosing the products.
No art theoretician was required to write articles about whether these things were esthetical, nice or whatever. The simple fact was that people took out their wallets and paid money for our products. Their actions said everything -- they really liked it.

Editor: How did you begin to expand your ceramic design ideas with the limitations imposed by the party?
Mihalik: When I got bored with producing flowerpots I started to think up new items that would be acceptable to the administration. In the beginning I had my imagination within the limits of the marketplace and so I started to produce ceramic boxes in the form of vegetables: i.e. cabbage, pumpkin and cucumber boxes as well as pencil holders in the form of Ementhal cheese. In our stall we carried the same things as all those babushka sellers from the villages; but
the only difference was that our stuff was inedible and it was more expensive. Nevertheless, our booth was always crowded and we had no difficulty in making sales.

Editor: When did you start your modern ceramic designs?
Mihalik: In 1984 I began to have new ceramic design ideas. Since these ceramics were not related to the products sold at the flower stand, I could not sell them there. So I began to produce new designs and I set up exhibition shelves in the hall of our flat in Bratislava. People would come in the evenings and buy things. Before Christmas in 1984 there were sometimes about 10 customers waiting for their turn in our living room to purchase one of my ceramics.

Editor: How did you eventually begin to expand your business outside of Czechoslovakia?
Mihalik: In 1986, Gorbachevs perestroika brought with it more freedom to the art exporting state companies in Prague and Bratislava. They were willing to arrange business passports for those artists who had contact with customers in the West. At that time, I was absolutely unknown in the West, so I
made use of a rare trip to Austria and -- equipped with photographs and samples of my ceramics. Instead of sightseeing and shopping I spent my time making contacts with Vienna galleries. I offered my wares in about 50 places until I found the right one. "Passini" was a very luxurious design shop about two-minutes walk from the Stephansdome. From that time on, things began to develop on their own. Another foreign trade agency, Incheba, helped me a great deal. They took me to a Salzburg trade fair where I was able to make a sale of 2500 of my bricks.These were actually souvenir boxes with an old brick exterior design and a white-glaze inside. Six months later an Austrian businessman showed me a copy of my brick box design and asked me if I could produce something like that.

Editor: Did you have any problems exporting your new ceramic designs?
Mihalik: There was one funny story that I remember. When I was trying to export my brick boxes that were ordered by the Austrian firm, I ran into a problem at the Austrian border. When I tried to pass through the border, the Austrian customs officers wanted me to pay a duty of 25,000 shillings on my boxes. Thinking quickly I told the officials that these bricks were “secret boxes for microfilms for CIA and offered him one as a gift. The official, realising the gag, went to his regulations, to check the customs tariffs again. He then reclassified my bricks as "heat-proof material", which required only a tariff of 7 shillings per ton. This reclassification allowed me to pass the border paying only 3.5 shillings for my 500 kilos instead of the 25,000 shillings originally asked.

Editor: How and when did you expand your production in Bratislava?
Mihalik: In 1985, I decided to expand our production and built a big kiln in the basement of our house on Gorazdova Street in Bratislava. This development required to employ workers to help me. Since it was still illegal under Communism to directly employ other people, I had to think of a way around this barrier. Being a sculptor, I decided that it would be legal for me to have “assistants.” Thus a friends of mine, a teacher at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, and a chief of the department at the Institute of Technical Cybernetics, began helping me. In the evenings they made some extra money by smoothing raw clay casts. At the same time we had endless discussions about politics, literature and the underground that I remember fondly.

Editor: How did you come to design your sculptures?
Mihalik: Starting in around 1986 I began to create ceramic sculptures. I used casts of live models or of antique and renaissance sculptures which I then changed into various, often surrealistic beings. In 1988 I sent some slides of my works to a world competition in New York and I received a prize of honor. This success encouraged me, and later in 1989 I sent more of my slides to a new competition in New York City. I am happy to say that, as a result of that
submission, I was awarded the first prize in the "clay" category, for the presentation of “Bomb-man” and "Fruit-lady” at an exhibition at Gallery 54 in Soho, New York city.

In 1987, at the time of Gorbachevs perestroika, I produced a sculpture in “honour” of this event. It was called “Godzilla” which is how we viewed Gorbachev at that time. While you may not be able to understand the Russian writing at the top of the sculpture, it says something equivalent to “ all the best with the New Year and the new monster.” In 1991, I entered my ceramic sculpture Smart and Stupid into an exhibition in Italy, the 47° Concorso
Internationale Della Ceramica Darte in Faenza-Palazzo in the town of Faenza, Italy. Usually it takes years until they let you exhibit there, but I was accepted immediately.

Editor: What activities did ART4 ceramics pursue after the political change in Central Europe in 1989?
J.Mihalik: We developed wings. In 1990 I opened my own gallery-shop in the historical center of Bratislava, so my needs to arrange new exhibitions was satisfied for the moment. Instead of seeking to create new gallery shows, we changed our strategy a bit. We hired an external manager to offer our
designs to a number of trade fairs in Germany. Soon after we developed distributors in many countries and eventually we started selling all five continents: from South Africa through Australia, Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, Hawaii, USA and Europe. Simply everywhere. Since 1983 I created over 500
ceramic designs and my company made over 150 000 ceramics in limited editions from 150 - 500 pieces.

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