Ateliér No. 4, February 21, 2008

in

Table of Contents [hide]

Adriena Šimotová – Kresby a perforace, page 1

– Pavel Brunclík: Adriena Šimotová – Drawings and Perforations (exhibition, Roudnice nad Labem, Galerie moderního umění / Gallery of Modern Art, 24. 1. – 30. 3.)

The oeuvre of Adriena Šimotová (1926, see At. Nos 5/88, 2, 26/89, 12, 19/90, 9, 22/91, 10, 17/92, 7, 9/93, 19, 21, 23/94, 4/95, 19, 24/96, 11/97, 12/98, 3/99, 1/00, 16-17/01, 16-17/02, 13, 19(03, 14-15/04, 23, 24/05, 25-26/06, 1, 5, 23, 24/07) is one of the greatest contribution to Czech art of the second half of the 20th century. Perforated drawings and / or perforated works on paper are a marked part of Šimotová’s oeuvre. The set of drawings and perforations from 1975 to 1985 on display is not a “summary” but a “pars pro toto” of the motif Šimotová applied in her works from the early 1970s to the present. The motif of perforation was heralded in Šimotová’s large-scale paintings of the late 1960s and the early 1970s, characterized by searching for a new expression and a more communicative art form. In these paintings, non-local white planes delineated the uncertain reality mediated by the figurative message. The next “step” in visualizing the existential uncertainty was perforation. The phenomenon of perforation emerged in Lucio Fontana’s works in the late 1940s. Fontana’s perforated works had iconoclastic character. Šimotová was a member of a next generation of artists. Perforation was only one of forms she used. The iconoclastic dimension of perforation was lesser important in her work. Perforation mediated the ambiguous “beyond” the picture in Šimotová’s work. The artistic meditation of existential dimensions and authentic expression were cardinal for Šimotová. The set of works on display includes a series of Šimotová’s early large-scale perforated works on paper. The perforated canvas is represented by a beautiful meditation on the human face The Profile of a Boy (Martin). Works on paper of the 1980s were characterized by the synthesis of the drawing and the perforation. Large-scale works of layered paper and / or carbon paper of the mid-1980s had character similar to the installation or the relief. Brunclík thinks that Šimotová’s large-scale perforated drawings of the mid-1980s echoed the artist’s experience with body art and action art, her knowledge of arte povera and the respect she paid to the traditions of European art in meditating the forgotten mystery of humanity.

Rodové aspekty „odporného“, page 2

– Zuzana Štefková: Gender Aspects of “Abjection” (theory – discussion – sources)

In 1993, the Whitney Museum of American Art launched the exhibition Abject Art: Repulsion and Desire in American Art. The curators did not interpret abject art as an art movement. They understood abject art works which included and / or visualized abject materials such as the dirt, hair, excrements, menstrual blood, rotten food etc. in mediating the taboo themes such as gender and sexuality. The term abject art originated from psychoanalysis. Thirteen years before the aforementioned exhibition was held, the Bulgarian-French theorist Julia Kristeva had published the book Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. “Abjection” is associated with the feeling of repulsion evoked by substances which leave the human body (excrements, cut hair, cut nails, body liquids etc.). It concerns the paradoxical experiences that questions the line dividing the subject from the object. From ancient times onwards, the human body was understood a model of society. This analogy works also vice versa: society is a picture of human body. The frontier body parts and their secretions are often interpreted from gender points of view. Due to the impact of Judaism on Western culture, the female body and its liquids are understood dirty. Kristeva defines three categories of abjection: food, death and female body. Abjection and its application on art is not gender neutral. Cindy Sherman, Helen Chadwick, Kiki Smith and other female artists often worked with the abject regarding the myths of female beauty, the immaculateness and the complementary myth of contamination produced by the female body. Regarding abject themes in works by male artists, the gender aspects are stressed neither by the artists nor the interpreters of their works. Despite it, Štefková thinks this aspect is relevant; she gives examples of symbolical castrations by Rudolf Schwarzkogler, paintings in sperm by the Slovak artist Otis Laubert and the masochistic-culinary rituals by Paul McCarthy and John Duncan. A pioneer in application of the abject on art was the Czech artist Petr Štembera (1945) in the 1970s; in his performance entitled Self-Portrait: Narcissus, Štembera drunk a cocktail of his blood, urine and cut hair and nails. The logic of Štembera’s self-acceptance was based on the phenomenological interpretation of the artist’s body as the subject’s point of departure. The subject of the artist was not represented as a gender conditioned but as the generally human. Despite it, there are some gender aspects detectable. Štembera alluded to the Christian tradition of the blood and the body of Christ. In this sense, he was both the savior and the saved. From the psychoanalyst point of view, Narcissus is a key figure in body art. It could be gender-interpreted: Narcissus’ self-love questions the precondition of the normative heterosexuality. According to Freud, homosexuality resulted from narcissistic development of the male subject. From this point of view, Narcissus challenges the traditional masculine self-stylization of the artist and opens a way to a reinterpretation of the importance of the body liquids; it enables him a symbolical return to the pre-Oedipus’ unity of the mother and the child (the subject and the object). A similar contemplative approach to the body liquids is represented by the installation Cushions (1996) by the Slovak female artist Lubica Salajková (1973). The artist embroidered incoherent texts on old cushions stained with body liquids. Using the traditional “female” art of embroidery, the artist transformed the cushions into intimate diaries written in sweet, blood, slaver, tears, pus. In difference to the aforementioned artworks in which the “abject” aspects of carnality were associated with the experience of the artist’s authentic Self, the following examples represent constructions of gender roles in broader social contexts: the Slovak-Hungarian artist Ilona Németh (1963) applied the concept of narcissism in examining the actual problems of the cult of human body within the consumers’ society by presenting her cut hair and nails in glass vessels. She entitled her work The Reliquaries (2000). The Czech artist Alena Kupčíková (1976) created her drawings of female nudes entitled Haired Girls (2002) of hair depilated from her and her female friends’ private parts. Kupčíková’s works are ambiguous: one hand side she shows the beauty of the abject, on the other hand she appropriated the language of pornography. The third type of abject art associated with the gender aspects concerns the gender contexts of artmaking. Three years ago, Štefková curated a project by Anetta Mona Chis¸a (1975) & Lucie Tkáčová (1977) entitled A Room of Their Own that parodied the clichés of the so called feminine art (the application of used tissues, sanitary tampons etc.). In 2000, the two artists presented their project entitled Twats. The ambiguous title echoed the “double theme” – the vagina and the stupid. The question was: Could be a “twat” found art if a “twat” is labelled art? The school-leaving work by Lukáš Haruštiak (1980), a graduate from the Academy of Visual Arts Bratislava, entitled Party After Dinner (2005), was a rebellion of a male artist against the over-feminized curatorial scene in Slovakia; he also ironized the stereotypes of feminine art. The title of Haruštiak’s work alluded to the famous Dinner Party (1974 – 1979) by Judy Chicago. Štefková summarizes: the gender aspects in Czech and Slovak art range from the existential types examining the limits of the subject (Štembera, Salajková) through exploring the social norms delimiting the beautiful and the abject (Németh, Kupčíková) to ironinzing the gender stereotypes in art (Mona Chis¸a & Tkáčová, Haruštiak).

Malíř naší nostalgie, page 4

– Lucie Žaludová: The Painter of Our Nostalgia (exhibition, Trutnov, Galerie města Trutnova / Trutnov Municipal Gallery, 30. 1. – 1. 3.)

The oeuvre of Zdeněk Burian (1905 – 1981, see At. Nos 10/92, 6/99, 11/05) was ignored by art critics for years. Burian was well-known of his illustrations to adventures and palaeontological reconstructions. For a period of sixty years, Burian was contributing by precise realistic pictures of “other worlds”, distinguished in dramatics. His paintings were never as excellent as his illustrations. Pointing out the artist’s versatility, the Trutnov exhibition presents only a selection of Burian’s extensive oeuvre (about 14 000 items) that evokes our nostalgia – “a desire to return to a place where we never have been” (Ivan Blatný). The set of book illustrations, palaelontological reconstructions and artworks on display is on loan from the Zdeněk Sklenář Gallery and two private collections.

Jan Vičar: Něco jako cestovní deník, page 4

– Radek Wohlmuth: Something Like a Traveller’s Diary (exhibition, Praha, Galerie Havelka / Havelka Gallery, 31. 1. – 23. 2.)

Jan Vičar (1967, see At. Nos 13/94, 6/96, 6/99, 13/01, 5, 9/02, 21/04, 10/05) is a major figure in Czech printmaking. His recent works are presented under the title On the Road. The exhibition title echoes the “migrant” life of the artist who took part in a number of international residencies and symposia, ranging from South Africa to Central Europe. In spite of the limited exhibition space, the set of about 20 works on display is representative, including one giant-format print, entitled The First Snow – a fascinating complex many-layered work composed of abstract, decorative and figurative elements. The set of works on display evidences the artist’s technical creativity and his sense of experiment. The experimental type of linocut is typical of Vičar’s work. The set of prints on display includes his recent experimental lithographs.

Deklarovaná impotence jako vzpoura proti imperativu produktivnosti, page 4

– Josef Ledvina: The Declared Impotence as a Rebellion against the Imperative of Productivity (exhibition, Praha, Galerie A. M. 180/Gallery A. M. 180, 26. 1. – 7. 2.)

The Olomouc based artist Martin Horák (1968) composed his solo exhibition at A. M. 180 of five artifacts installed at two small rooms. The inscription ∞ 1/2, made of black ceramics, evoked the poster of the famous film 8 1/2 by Fellini – only 8 was shifted into the symbol of infinity. The hero of Fellini’s film, the film director Guido Anselmi, was struggling with his inability in making a new film. Horák did not self-identify with Anselmi’s suffering. His programme was impotence: his work never had been and never would be perfect; it was a constant series of something imperfect and half-way. Objects on display symbolized the disappointment at modernity and technology, the impotence to “produce”, the fear, suffering and questions that accompanied the creative process. Other dimension of Horák’s project was self-irony: the Moravian city of Olomouc, where he lives and works, is a “periphery” in comparison to the “centres” full of infinite creativity of young artists. The cardinal theme of Horák’s project was the traumatic experience of people unable to participate in a social system based on productivity, effectivity and achievement.

Josef Divín – Piazza San Marco, page 4

– Marie Kohoutová: Josef Divín – Piazza San Marco (exhibition, Brno, Centrum experimentálního divadla – Galerie Katakomby / Centre of Experimental Theatre – Catacombs Gallery, 10. 12. 2007 – 30. 1. 2008)

The central artwork of the Josef Divín (1982) exhibition was a large-scale installation (5 m2), composed of glass with aluminium foil and sheet-metal on the floor, that echoed the artist’s memories of his residency in Venice. Divín also visualized the atmosphere of Venice’s passing away beauty in form of paintings on burnt wood. The set of works on display included large-scale glass objects (h. 6 m) from the series entitled Sewers, pictures and objects of blown and cut glass. Divín, who was awarded the Josef Hlávka Prize, is a promising artist.

Čtvrtá směna, page 5

– Zuzana Štefková: Four-Shift-Run (exhibition, Praha, Školská 28/ Gallery Školská 28, 11. 1. – 30. 1.)

The former school-mates at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design Prague (the department headed by Adéla Matasová) Anna Chmelová (1972), Eva Sakuma (1975) and Milena Olivová-Průžková (1974) have a common problem: how to knit together the mother’s role with artmaking. It is echoed in the exhibition title Four-Shift-Run. To define a common theme in their art is not easy. The three artists work with diverse media. According to Štefková, the still, very aesthetic and precise character is typical of works on display. Chmelová presents a kinetic object entitled Disjunction – Disconnection (2007) and a series of manipulated photographs entitled The Places Which Do Not Exist (2005 – 2007). The assumedly abstract structures of layered manipulated images echo the “diary” of a mother and an artist. Sakuma contributed by a series of paintings of meditative character similar to Eastern spirituality; the reduced the scale of colours to evoke the Oriental painting in Indian ink. The work with beads is typical of Průžková-Olivová. She contributed by “portraits” of flowers, characterized by harsh colours and reduced shapes comparable to Aborigine art.

Napůl otázka, page 5

– Adam Borzič: A Half-Question (exhibition, Praha, Klub Delta / Delta Club, 11. 1. – 6. 3.)

The Delta club, a famous oasis of alternative culture in the Prague outskirts, will be swallowed by the demons of effectivity and free market. The Mikuláš exhibition was one of the last project held at Delta. Borzič points out the poetic, dreamy character of Mikuláš’ paintings and mixed media works, distinguished in a nostalgic beauty that evoke existential questions and echo our stirring searching for the inner peace.

MZA COLA P – Václav Girsa, page 5

– Aleš Kuneš: MZA COLA P – Václav Girsa (exhibition, Praha, Galerie Trafačka / Transformer Station Gallery, 3. 1. – 24. 1.)

The industrial building of the former transformer station hosts the studios of Kaláb, Nepraš, Týc, Cimala and Káňa and an exhibition space. The cardinal themes of exhibitions, workshops and lectures at Trafačka are Street Art, Conceptual Art and presentations of emerging artists. Václav Girsa (1969, see At. Nos 6/04, 9/05, 22/06, 4, 11, 22/07) is a graduate from the department of painting headed by Vladimír Skrepl at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. The title of the Girsa exhibition was derived from the mysterious inscription on a stamp from Anatol France’s Penguin Island. The guests to the Girsa exhibition were Silvina Arismedi, Markéta Dlouhá Márová, Adam Štech and Petr Tejkal. Despite that most of participating artists studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, they work with various media. Girsa’s mixed media works and installations, composed of found objects, drawings, photographs, postcards, calendars etc., echoed his journeys to Patagonia and Argentina.

Tvary a barvy z Paříže, page 6

– Ivo Janoušek: Shapes and Colours from Paris (exhibitions, Praha, French Institute, 17. 1. – 27. 2.; Plzeň, Galerie města Plzně / Gallery City Pilsen and French Alliance, 17. 1. – 27. 2.)

The triple exhibition present works by the Paris based artists of Czech descent Terry Haass (1923, see At. Nos 21/01, 3/05) and Zuzana Hulka (1951, see At. Nos 3/00, 5/01, 7/02). Haass moved to Paris in the late 1930s. Her oeuvre belongs to the post-war Avant-Gardes. She lived in New York from 1941 to 1951. She was a pupil of William Barnet, Osip Zadkin and Stanley Hayfer. She met major artists in New York. Haass taught graphic art at the Brooklyn College and the New York City College. Her journeys to Northern Europe were echoed in series of prints, inspired by the Northern landscapes and light. She studied archaeology and participated in excavations in the Near and Central East from 1954 to 1969. In the 1960, her interest in timespace and cosmology was echoed in series of prints with the motifs of the lines of force. In the 1970s, she visualized these motifs in form of 3D plexiglass objects. Her output of the 1980s was characterized by geometric forms. From the late 1990s onwards, the theme of Haass’ sculptures was music. The Haass exhibition in Pilsen includes a selection of prints from the 1950s to the 1970s. The core of the set of work on display is a collection of collages of colour papers of the 1980s and the 1990s; geometric segments evoke the essence of the landscape. Hulka is an internationally renowned, representative of Lyric Abstraction. She emigrated to France in 1981. Distinguished in marked colourism, her works are characterized by examining the relations between the colour and the form. The set of Hulka’s works on display in Pilsen includes paintings from 1997 to 2007. The accompanying exhibition presents Hulka’s large-scale lithographs.

Skupina 4 + hosté, page 6

– Jiří Valoch: The Group 4 + Guests (exhibition, Nové Město na Moravě, Horácká galerie / Art Gallery of Horácko Region, 26. 1. – 23. 3.)

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Třebíč based Group 4, works by the members + friends of the Group 4 are presented in the exhibition curated by Josef Chalupa. The founding members of the Group 4 were Milan Nestrojil (1947), Miroslav Pálka (1949), Zdeněk Šplíchal (1948) and Zdeněk Štajnc (1948). Only Pálka stopped artmaking in the early 1970s. Other founding members keep artmaking till the present. Václav Dosbaba (1945) participated in the Group 4 exhibitions from 1971 onwards. Miroslav Kubíček (1952) entered the Group 4 in 1982. The major representative of the Group 4 was Ladislav Novák (1925 – 1999, see At. Nos 26/89, 26/90, 12, 25/91, 13/92, 1/93, 16-17, 21/94, 5, 18/95, 20/96, 8, 10, 21/97, 6/98, 19, 22/99, 19/00, 1, 3, 14-15, 25-26/01, 7/02, 6/03, 5/04, 7/06, 10/07). The set of works on display includes contributions by the Třebíč based artists Lubomír Kressa (1941 – 1981) and Arnošt Pacola (1960, see At. Nos 1/93, 17-18/97) and the photographer Václav Petr (1942). Despite that Novák was a major figure in Czech art of the second half of the 20th century, the set of works on display evidences that the members of the Group 4 were original creators who contributed by a spectrum of art.

Žižkovská avantgarda po 30 letech, page 7

– Mariana Dufková: The Žižkov Avant-Garde after 30 Years (exhibition, Praha, Atrium/Atrium, 13. 2. – 14. 3.)

The lesser-well known loose association of “local” artists (Žižkov is a Prague quarter) was established in 1978, resulting from the friendship of Josef Häring (1952) and Jan Sekal (1948, see At. Nos 8/91, 10/95, 26/97, 7/99, 5/00, 24/01, 20/03, 9, 23/05, 22/06). Later on, the renowned painter Andrej Bělocvětov (1923 – 1997, see At. Nos 13/88, 25/91, 6/93, 2/97, 21/06, 23/07) and a Slovak student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague František Kudláč (1954) joined to the group. The unofficial exhibitions of the group were organized by Sekal and Häring in 1981 and 1982. The common activities were stopped after Jan Sekal had been forced to emigrate in 1983. Kudláč returned to Bratislava after he had graduated from the Academy in 1981. Häring moved from Prague to Pilsen in 1998. The set of works on display consists of Bělocvětov’s works of the 1970s and recent works by Sekal, Häring and Kudláč.

Osamělý běžec, page 7

– Petr Wittlich: A Lonely Runner (book review, František Ronovský. Texts by Jiří Urban, Jan Baleka, Josef Koutecký, Jan Kříž, Jiří Mašín, Jiří Šetlík. Lay Out by Rostislav Vaněk. JAKURA, Praha 2007. 283 pp., plates)

František Ronovský (1929 – 2006, see At. Nos 26/90, 7/95, 29/96, 1/97, 20/99, 2/01, 24/04, 8/06, 24/07)) was a marked figure in Czech painting of the second half of the 20th century. The representative monograph of Ronovský, edited by Jiří Urban, includes contributions by Ronovský’s friends Jan Baleka, Jiří Šetlík and Jiří Mašín and a 1969-critical essay by Jan Kříž. Ronovský started to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1948. It was a troublesome period of the Communist dictatorship. Its impact on art was the forced style of Socialist Realism. Ronovský’s teacher at the Academy was Miloslav Holý. Thanks to the fact that Ronovský’s two private teachers had been former pupils of Vojtěch Hynais, the young student at the Academy was ready to adapt to the Impressionist style of his teacher Miloslav Holý. Ronovský’s inclination to emotional expressivity was evident in his early self-portraits and portraits of his female friends of the mid-1950s. In 1957, the famous exhibition of the group Máj 57 was held. Its impact on Czech art regarding the return to Modernity was crucial. After Ronovský had visited Paris in 1959, his nudes and pictures of women evidenced the influence of pre-Cubist Picasso. The expressivity of Ronovský’s works was stressed with the application of the encaustic. In the early 1960s, Ronovský co-founded the group Etapa. He contributed to trends to radical abstraction. In 1964, the critic František Šmejkal raised a passionate discussion by comparing Ronovský’s abstract paintings to the academic style. After Ronovský had seen many “lyric abstractions” in Paris later on, he came to conclusion to take a different path. From the 1960s onwards, two cardinal aspects emerged in Ronovský’s work. The previous was based on sensual reality, the latter resulted from the subjective transposition of emotional ideas. Ronovský’s melancholic temperament had recourse to the art traditions, particularly Rembrandt, Tintoretto and Piero della Francesca. In the late 1960s, Ronovský was a renowned figure in New Figuration. Due to the so called “Communist Normalization” after 1968, Ronovský did not achieve international fame. The painting entitled The Memory of Paris (1971 – 1974) was Ronovský’s farewell to the romanticism of Modernity. Later on, he contributed by figural paintings inspired by the Czech countryside and private life that echoed the fragility of life (the series of paintings Mother). Wittlich interprets the impressive painting A Young Man at the Table (around 1995) as Ronovský’s crypto-self-portrait expressing the artist’s existential feeling of the encounter with nothingness.

Wien – Paris, page 8

– David Bareš: Vienna – Paris. Van Gogh, Cézanne and Austria’s Modernists 1880 – 1960 (exhibition, Vienna, Unteres Belvedere, Orangerie, 3. 10. 2007 – 13. 1. 2008)

The exhibition, mapping mutual influences between the two capitals from the 1888 to 1960, was divided into 15 sections. The set of about 250 artworks on display consists of lesser-well-known master works by major figures in French and Austrian art (painting, graphic arts, architecture), ranging from Realism to post-war Abstract Expressionism. Bareš comments on the fact that Czech art to 1918 was rightly considered under the label of “Austria’s”, pointing out the radically different developments of Czech and Austrian art after the Austrian-Hungarian empire split into succession states in 1918; it concern particularly Surrealism and Classical Modernity. Despite the exhibition title, the mutual influence between Vienna and Paris were not equal: Vienna was a periphery that was being influenced by the Paris centre. Bareš would find praiseworthy to mount an exhibition mapping the mutual influence Prague – Paris.

Pozdní akty Karla Appela, page 9

– Irena Lehkoživová: Karel Appel’s Late Nudes (exhibition, Vienna, Albertina Museum, 7. 12. 2007 – 3. 2. 2008)

Thanks to a generous gift by an anonymous donor, 12 large-scale female nude drawings by the Dutch artist Karel Appel (1921 – 2006), a major figure in l’art brut, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, were on display at the Albertina Museum. In comparison to his previous output, Appel’s late drawings, executed mostly in the grey and violet colours which replaced the red, blue and yellow colour dominant in his previous works, were more static and more realistic in comparison to his pervious output.

Vizuálna hra Stachových fotosekvencií, page 9

– Vladimír Beskid: The Visual Play of Stacho’s Photo Sequences (exhibition, Trnava, Galéria Jána Koniarka / Ján Koniarek Gallery, 10. 1. – 2. 3.)

The Ján Koniarek Gallery organized a series of exhibitions presenting the key figures in contemporary Slovak art. The Ľubo Stacho (1953) exhibition is held under the title Diptychs. The exhibition concept is based on the principle of “time diptych” – a dialogue and / or a confrontation of two photographs. More over, the exhibition presents Stacho’s original photographic oeuvre in form of two “time diptych”: the first section – the past – consists of 40 double black and white photographs taken from 1985 to 1995. The focal theme of this section is the cultural and personal memories (Christian and Communist symbols, people and families taken in time etc.). The dominant work of the section dedicated to the present is a series of colour photographs entitled Slovakia, the Mysterious and Spiritual Country (2000 – 2007, 47 diptychs). It is a fascinating mosaic mixing the documentary with the imaginary into a many-layered metaphoric chronicle of the photographer’s native country.

Vážná hra, page 9

– Pavel Želechovský: A Serious Game (exhibition, Munich, Pasinger Fabrik, 1. 2. – 24. 2.)

Under the title Invasion 6, the exhibition of works by students of Jan Mladovský (Norwhich School of Art and Design), Magdalena Jetelová (Academy of Fine Arts Munich) and Stanislav Zippe (Technical University Liberec) is held in Munich. Želechovský thinks that no marked differences corresponding to the three respective teachers and / or schools are evident. He was particularly impressed by the interactive geometric screening by Ondřej Horáček (Liberec), computer-generated drawings by Jana Bernatová (Liberec), a playful kinetic work by Richard Loskot (Liberec), an acoustic-visual work by Till Schilling (Munich) and a paper silhouette by Michiru Sekiguchi (Munich). Despite a spectrum of works executed in diverse media and styles, the exhibition is a well-considered project.

Zastavení s Věrou Janouškovou, page 12

– Lucie Váchová: A Stay with Věra Janoušková (exhibition, Hradec Králové, Galerie moderního umění / Gallery of Modern Art, 24. 1. – 23. 3.; Jičín, Regionální muzeum a galerie / Regional Museum and Art Gallery, 6. 5. – 15. 6.)

Věra Janoušková (1922, see at. Nos 7/88, 15/90, 25/91, 19/92, 2, 20, 24/93, 2, 25/94, 9/95, 1, 26/96, 1, 11, 25/98, 1/00, 14-15/02, 13/04) is a major figure in Czech sculpture of the 20th century. The above exhibition presents Janoušková’s recent works on paper, particularly the series of collages from 1989 to the present, accompanied by several reliefs and sculptural objects. The figural art is typical of Janoušková. Recently, she has replaced the grotesquely deformed shapes by robust ovals of heads with subtle or no body. Series of angles are characteristic of her recent output. The set of works on display includes a short film entitled Welding that portrays the famous sculptor in her studio creating her typical enamel works. The exhibition is accompanied by a small catalogue including an interview with Janoušková.

Dialogy Josefa Hampla, page 12

– Ivo Janoušek: Josef Hampl’s Dialogues (exhibition, Praha, Galerie Dion / Dion Gallery, 4. 2. – 29. 2.)

Under the title Dialogues, the newest works by Josef Hampl (1932, see At. Nos. 11, 21/90, 16, 21/91, 8/93, 21/97, 20/98, 2/99, 18/00, 5/02, 6/07) are presented. Hampl studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Prague from 1955 to 1960. Vladimír Boudník (1924 – 1968), particularly Budník’s aesthetics of structural graphic art of the early 1960s, had the cardinal impact on Hampl’s art. Hampl is well-known of his early abstract works executed in experimental graphic techniques. From 1969 to 1990, he was a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Form the early 1970s onwards, he contributed by geometric works. Since the mid-1970s, large-scale collages, evoking abstract landscapes, have been typical of Hampl. From the mid-1980s onwards, Hampl created original sewn collages on canvas. Hampl’s recent output is represented by series of collages examining the variants of shapes (Confrontations, 2006) and colours (Compositions in black, 2007), and the themes of the landscape (The Memory of the Stone, 2007), the existence in time (Time, 2006; Waiting, 2007) and the mass media (The Message, 2007).

Imaginární kosmos, page 12

– Mahulena Nešlehová: Imaginary Cosmos (exhibition, Olomouc, Muzeum umění / Museum of Art, 18. 10. – 30. 12. 2007; Hluboká nad Vltavou, Alšova jihočeská galerie / Aleš Gallery of South Bohemia, 7. 2. – 23. 3. 2008)

The painter and printmaker Dana Puchnarová (1938, see At. Nos 23/91, 24/92, 2/93, 23/95, 5/96, 6, 13/98, 2/99, 4, 10, 19, 22/04, 9/05, 19/06, 12/07) is a member of the generation of artists who contributed by the radical expressive type of the Informel in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. Since this time, the creative experimenting and spiritual contemplation have been typical of Puchnarová’s art. Jiří Olič, the curator of the Puchnarová retrospective, points out both the order and geometry and the spiritual values in Puchnarová’s work. The exhibition is divided into two sections. The first section presents Puchnarová’s works from the 1960s to the early 1990s in chronological order. The latter section is devoted to Puchnarová’s recent output. The set of works on display includes large-scale drawings from the series Veiled Drawings (2003) and paintings from the series Nets (1996 – 2006). Through geometric figures of bright colours, Puchnarová expresses the idea of the inner unity and fragility of existence. The well-considered representative exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue edited by Jiří Olič, including an essay by Vlastimil Tetiva.

Třetí strana rámu – Frame, page 16

– Aleš Kuneš: The Third Side of the Frame – Frame (competition & exhibition of contemporary photography, Brno, Dům umění / House of Art, 6. 12. – 30. 12. 2007; České Budějovice, Galerie Měsíc ve dne / Moon by Day Gallery, 11. 1. – 6. 2.; Praha, Novoměstská radnice / New Town Hall, 7. 3. – 30. 3.)

Organized by Evžen Sobek and Ondřej Žižka, Frame is an open competition, so that a spectrum of contemporary photography is presented within this project. Most of participants to the 3rd edition of Frame are emerging photographers, particularly students at and / or graduates from the schools of photography in Prague, Opava, Ústí nad Labem and Zlín. Kuneš points out that the traditional black and white photography was almost completely replaced by colour photography in the Czech Republic at the turn of the millennium. The traditional humanistic black and white document has been replaced by works examining the “personal reality”; this type is vaguely labelled as “New Document”. The formal and / or decorative aspects have been set aside: the emphasis is laid on the content. Kuneš was particularly impressed by works by Andrej Balco, Vojtěch Sláma, Gabriela Kolčavová, Agáta Marzecová, Barbora Krejčová, Petra Steinerová, Ondřej Přibyl, Daniela Kroupová, Daniela Dostálková, Barbora Prášilová, Kamila Musilová and Barbora Kuklíková. Many of the awarded photographers are internationally renowned artists – for example, Martin Kollár, Andrzej Kramarz and Weronika Lodzińska, Pawel Olejniczak & Marcin Morawicki, Hynek Alt & Aleksandra Vajd, Zuzana Blochová & Dita Lamačová and Tomáš Pospěch.

Translated by Magda Němcová