Július Koller

Július Koller (1939, Piešťany – 2007, Bratislava) ranks among the most radical and at the same time most influential figures of conceptual art in Central Europe. His work emerged under the conditions of socialist Czechoslovakia and took shape as an alternative both to official culture and to Western art trends. Koller consistently sought to redefine the notion of art and its function in society—replacing traditional visual forms with gestures, textual announcements, and inconspicuous interventions into everyday reality.

For him, art was not merely a visual expression but a way to respond to an era rife with contradictions, manipulation, and uncertainty. Through his “cultural situations,” question marks, and futurological projects, he created space for free thought and civic responsibility.

Today, his work is part of the collections of leading institutions worldwide, including MoMA in New York, Tate Modern in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and mumok in Vienna. In Slovakia, Koller’s legacy is studied by several collections—one of them is the collection KONCEPTIA.

Early explorations – bad painting, text paintings, civilism, combo-paintings, waste culture

At the beginning of the 1960s, still during his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (1959 – 1965), Július Koller created a series of figurative paintings—self-portraits, nudes, and heads—that, although based in academic training, already display ironic distance, deformation, and simplification. Many read as consciously “bad paintings” that disrupt aesthetic expectations and question classical value criteria ^[1].

From 1963 onward, writing appears in his work. Words, signs, and punctuation marks become part of the pictorial surface—not as captions but as visual elements with their own semantic function. In the work More (“Sea”), the word “more” is inscribed into a monochrome dark-blue ground. Here, text is not an illustration but an image of language itself. This period also yields drawings such as Landscape, Mountains, Tree, Earth, Woman, Dog, and Man, which reduce the motif to a simple silhouette or sign, often in a two-color composition^[1].

In parallel, from 1964 onward, civilist motifs appear in his work—urban peripheries, technical structures, housing estates, and public spaces. Their treatment is matter-of-fact, flat, without illusionism or poetization. Koller was inspired by Czech painting of the 1940s, especially its approach to the cultural margins. His civilism does not stem from fascination with modern life but from an environment of modesty and visual austerity ^[2].

During this period he also presented a group of objects he later called ideo-objects. These were simple things—for example, a glass of water, a plastic bag filled with air, a framed unpainted canvas, or paint squeezed from a tube. These things were not understood as artworks but as carriers of an idea: of purity, truth, and authenticity. Their meaning derived from their relation to reality, not from their visual form^[1].

In 1965 – 1966, Koller attached small readymades to some of his earlier paintings. The result was COMBO-PAINTINGS—a kind of minimal, economical variant of Robert Rauschenberg’s combine paintings. These were formally simple compositions that joined existing paintings with everyday objects, while the final image felt provisional yet precisely composed. The combo-paintings represent a distinctive way of working with image and space, without the ambition to form a coherent program or a response to art trends^[1].

From a different stance grows the concept of waste culture, which begins to take shape at the same time. This is not a label for a particular type of visual production but a name for Koller’s existential position—a cultural stance outside official art, where “great art” or “beautiful painting” cannot be made. In this space, anything ordinary, overlooked, or marginal becomes artistic material. Waste culture is therefore neither a style nor a technique, but a long-term strategy of defiance and authentic creation from “almost nothing”^[3].

• [1] JÚLIUS KOLLER VEDECKO-FANTASTICKÁ RETROSPEKTÍVA, Petra Hanáková & Aurel Hrabušický, Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava 2010
• [2] U.F.O. Umenie fantastického odhmotnenia, Lucia Gregorová Stach, Aurel Hrabušický, Alexandra Kusá, Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava 2024
• [3] JK Odpadová Kultura.pdf – interný preklad výberového súboru textov z publikácie JK Odpadová Kultúra (samostatný tlačený sprievodca k výstave)

Antihappening and the cultural alternative

In 1965, Július Koller created a textcard bearing the word ANTIHAPPENING, opening an entirely new line of his work. This textcard functioned as a manifesto—a clear statement in which Koller announced the linkage of artistic objectivity with the reality of everyday life^[1]. He rejected the action-based and spectacular forms of Western happenings and instead formulated his own strategy: personal, civil, unobtrusive gestures with the character of a cultural stance.

Unlike the happening, which relied on surprise, theatricality, and collective experience, Koller’s antihappening is a gesture of everydayness—unshowy, private, and unheroic. Its aim is not to overwhelm the viewer but to pose questions, challenge the principle of making, and redefine the role of the maker^[2].

One of the first examples of this turn is the work Antihappening (J.K. – tennis match, 1968), in which Koller designates his own sports match as an artistic act. This move exemplifies his program: to create a “cultural situation” instead of an art object, to replace aesthetics with ethics, art with life. Antihappenings thus become part of a broader concept of the “cultural alternative”—a creative stance operating outside official art, outside aesthetics, and outside exhibition institutions^[3].

An important component of this phase are the painting games—paintings created not as visual compositions but as records of a gesture or material action. He most often uses white latex, applying it to produce minimalist structures, signs, or exclamation marks. In some cases, the canvas becomes a field for action—pouring, smearing, deliberate imperfection. Painting thus becomes a document of a mental process or a “cultural gesture”^[4].

The antihappening phase also includes textual works—textcards that function as notices or announcements. Their content is slogan-like, economical, often paradoxical (PERMANENT MYSTIFICATION, MISUNDERSTANDING, OVERART, ART? NO!). The textcards are simultaneously part of his broader effort toward a “system of subjective objectivity”—an alternative logic that does not proceed from an art language but from a personal cultural intuition^[5].

With this program Koller lays the groundwork for what he later called a “cultural alternative”—a way of existing that is not based on an art career but on the daily exercise of cultural responsibility. He steps out of the role of artist and adopts the role of a “citizen in a cultural environment,” who does not play at being an artist but plays as a cultural being^[5].

• [1] Zbierka Investičná skupina, Zuzana Bartošová, 2025
• [2] JÚLIUS KOLLER VEDECKO-FANTASTICKÁ RETROSPEKTÍVA, Petra Hanáková & Aurel Hrabušický, Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava 2010
• [3] U.F.O. Umenie fantastického odhmotnenia, Lucia Gregorová Stach, Aurel Hrabušický, Alexandra Kusá, Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava 2024
• [4] Július Koller – SONDY, Slovenská národná galéria, 1991
• [5] AUSTRÁLIA 1994 – prednáška J. Kollera pre MCA Sydney, UNIVERZITY SYDNEY

Anti-picture and the system of subjective objectivity

By the late 1960s, Július Koller gradually abandoned traditional painting and began producing works he himself called anti-pictures. These are not visual compositions in the classical sense but gestures—simple inscriptions, flat interventions, basic materials. Instead of paintings, he produces formats bearing inscriptions such as PICTURE, NON-PICTURE, COSMIC PICTURE, or WHITE PICTURE, often hand-written on jute, paper, or cloth^[1].

These works reject the traditional understanding of the picture as a bearer of illusion or aesthetics. Koller replaces image with word, color with inscription, composition with textual intervention. In doing so, he thematizes the very essence of the picture—what “picture” means in an age saturated with visual noise and manipulation^[2].

The anti-picture does not remain a short-lived experiment but a long-present strategy. Koller returns to this form repeatedly over different periods, while the basic principle remains the same—to replace the visual language with an elementary yet semantically precise intervention.

At the same time, he formulates his fundamental theoretical framework—the so-called system of subjective objectivity. It is grounded in the author’s individual stance toward reality, perceived neither objectively nor purely subjectively, but as a combination of personal intuition and social orientation. This system enables him to create “cultural situations” instead of artworks—each image, text, and intervention is understood as a signal of cultural consciousness rather than an artifact for aesthetic reception^[3].

The anti-picture is thus not only a visual response but also a philosophical gesture. An empty surface, a simple word, a question mark, or an exclamation mark become the basic units of a new type of communication—between author and society, between art and reality.

• [1] JÚLIUS KOLLER VEDECKO-FANTASTICKÁ RETROSPEKTÍVA, Petra Hanáková & Aurel Hrabušický, Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava 2010
• [2] U.F.O. Umenie fantastického odhmotnenia, Lucia Gregorová Stach, Aurel Hrabušický, Alexandra Kusá, Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava 2024
• [3] AUSTRÁLIA 1994 – prednáška J. Kollera pre MCA Sydney, UNIVERZITY SYDNEY

The question mark as emblem and medium

At the end of the 1960s, the symbol of the question mark (?) begins to appear in Koller’s work—initially in texts and inscriptions, later also in visual form. The question mark gradually becomes his personal emblem—a visual sign of doubt, orientation, and cultural gesture.

For Koller, this was not just a punctuation mark but a symbol of openness, ambiguity, and active questioning. The question mark appears on paintings, objects, textcards, photographs, and documents. It accompanies slogans such as ART?, CULTURE?, or stands alone as a sign meant to provoke reflection and question established meanings^[1].

Visually, the question mark is usually prominent, white, and high-contrast—often applied to an empty or monochrome background. In his texts, Koller speaks of the question mark as his medium, identity, and instrument of critical thinking^[2].

Thus the question mark becomes an important element of his “cultural situations”—it acts both as a signal and as a challenge. It does not provide an answer; rather, it calls for orientation—personal, ethical, and social.

• [1] U.F.O. Umenie fantastického odhmotnenia, Lucia Gregorová Stach, Aurel Hrabušický, Alexandra Kusá, Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava 2024
• [2] AUSTRÁLIA 1994 – prednáška J. Kollera pre MCA Sydney, UNIVERZITY SYDNEY

U.F.O. – Universal Cultural Futurological Operation

In the first half of the 1970s, Július Koller developed a project entitled U.F.O. – Universal Cultural Futurological Operation. Under this acronym he created an extensive concept that connects cultural gestures, futurological visions, and a personal mythology. U.F.O. is not a theme about extraterrestrials but a symbolic framework within which Koller shifts art into the realm of a new, alternative culture based on values such as truth, understanding, peace, and interpersonal communication^[1].

The U.F.O. project comprises diverse forms: photographs, drawings, collages, texts, sports actions, documentation, and authorial proclamations. In many works Koller appears as the main protagonist—he becomes the actor of fictitious cultural events, often in everyday clothes, with props such as a tennis racket, a question mark, or a postcard. These self-stagings do not create fiction but a parallel cultural universe in which identity, communication, responsibility, and belief in the possibility of positive change are explored^[2].

The motif of play—especially tennis as an act of cultural orientation—becomes part of this framework. Koller understood sport as a space for forming consciousness, not as competition but as a cultural situation.

In 1970, Koller formulated his new identity: U.F.O.-naut J.K. From this moment he appears in many works under this “rank,” which he understood as the designation of a being outside the traditional art world. The U.F.O.-naut became for him the bearer of a new culture—a person unbound by ideology, prejudice, or convention^[3]. In self-portraits, photomontages, and visual records he appears as a cultural being on a journey toward an alternative order of the world.

The acronym U.F.O. also appears as a label for individual series: U.F.O.-naut, U.F.O.-object, U.F.O.-cultural situation, U.F.O.-visualization, U.F.O.-record. All of these outputs are part of his effort to create a cultural alternative—not as an escape but as an active attempt to reframe the perception of reality.

In one of his proclamatory texts he writes:
“For me, the new culture is a certain civilizational-ethical state (quality) of a new society. It means a new orientation of human consciousness—its thinking, feeling, behavior, action, and being.”^[4]

The U.F.O. project is thus political, ethical, and poetic at once. Here, cultural futurology is not fantasy but an instrument of critical thinking. The creation of fictitious signs, messages, and images is Koller’s response to the cultural reality of his time—a way to confront manipulation and the deformation of values he considered fundamental.

• [1] U.F.O. Umenie fantastického odhmotnenia, Lucia Gregorová Stach, Aurel Hrabušický, Alexandra Kusá, Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava 2024
• [2] AUSTRÁLIA 1994 – prednáška J. Kollera pre MCA Sydney, UNIVERZITY SYDNEY
• [3] JÚLIUS KOLLER VEDECKO-FANTASTICKÁ RETROSPEKTÍVA, Petra Hanáková & Aurel Hrabušický, Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava 2010
• [4] Július Koller – SONDY, Slovenská národná galéria, 1991

J+K – Art as shared existence

From the early 1970s, a new dimension appears in Július Koller’s life—his partnership with Kveta Fulierová. This connection gradually acquires a cultural form and begins to be designated as J+K. It is a label that does not denote an artist duo in the traditional sense but a model of shared existence in which everyday life becomes an artistic (or rather cultural) gesture^[1].

The J+K label functions as an emblem of a partnership that does not exhibit itself but documents itself. Kvetoslava Fulierová assumes the role of observer—archiving, photographing, and recording. This yields an extensive visual and textual archive of everyday life that is not presented as a work but as part of a cultural situation^[2].

Exhibition projects gradually include photographs of J+K in everyday situations—on a walk, at the table, in a room, on a trip. These shots are not staged, yet they are thematically focused: they show that cultural change can occur within the sphere of ordinary life, outside institutions and beyond formal art markers^[3].

For Koller, the J+K relationship was above all proof that cultural consciousness manifests not only in the work but also in a stance, responsibility, and way of being. Art becomes a daily activity—not in the sense of producing artifacts, but as the ongoing enactment of a cultural alternative.

• [1] U.F.O. Umenie fantastického odhmotnenia, Lucia Gregorová Stach, Aurel Hrabušický, Alexandra Kusá, Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava 2024
• [2] AUSTRÁLIA 1994 – prednáška J. Kollera pre MCA Sydney, UNIVERZITY SYDNEY
• [3] JÚLIUS KOLLER VEDECKO-FANTASTICKÁ RETROSPEKTÍVA, Petra Hanáková & Aurel Hrabušický, Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava 2010

Legacy and influence of Július Koller

The work of Július Koller represents a fundamental contribution to the history of conceptual art not only in Slovakia but also in a global context. Koller developed his own system of artistic thinking—he linked visual gestures with everyday reality, poetry with skepticism, and created a language of signs that still resonates as a signal of critical consciousness.

For decades his work was known mainly within a close circle of experts and peers. Gradually, however, it gained international recognition: today his works are in the collections of leading institutions such as MoMA in New York, Tate Modern in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, mumok in Vienna, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam^[1].

The growth of knowledge about his work has been significantly supported by the research and exhibition projects of the Slovak National Gallery, which maintains an extensive archive of his documentation. An important resource is also the private archive of Květa Fulierová, who worked closely with Koller and documented their shared life as a cultural situation^[2].

The influence of his ideas can still be observed among several generations of Slovak and international artists—not as direct aesthetic inspiration but as a methodology of cultural thinking that questions norms and seeks alternative paths to interpreting reality. Many authors follow Koller’s strategies of “non-action,” documentation, play, or reinterpretation of the everyday.

His work was never dependent on market mechanisms—it remains a challenge and an open system that invites further study. In Slovakia there are several public and private collections of his works; one of them is the collection KONCEPTIA.

• [1] U.F.O. Umenie fantastického odhmotnenia, Lucia Gregorová Stach, Aurel Hrabušický, Alexandra Kusá, Slovenská národná galéria, Bratislava 2024
• [2] JÚLIUS KOLLER – SONDY, Slovenská národná galéria, 1991