Sculptures
on the Wenceslas square
Sep 8 - Oct 5, 2020
2020
About
VáclavART
It is an art project, the aim of which is to introduce the interesting art of young artists into the public space, enliven it by provoking it and bring new impulses to the discussion about the future looks of central localities.
We moved this year’s 4th year of exhibition to a part of the future-to-be Hradební korzo, specifically to Na Příkopě Street, to the part of the pedestrian zone from Wenceslas Square to Panská Street.
VáclavART supports young, beginning artists, gives them the opportunity to present their work and talent and helps them in their artistic start.
The fourth year presents 40 works of art (18 sculptures and over two dozen paintings) from 12 young artists, graduates incl. several students from the sculpture studios of Lukáš Rittstein, Vojtěch Míča and Jaroslav Róna and from the painting studio of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
Thus, Na Příkopě Street will be filled with statues for four weeks (from September 8 to October 5, 20). The main part of the exhibition will take place in the right part of the pedestrian zone of Na Příkopě Street, some sculptures will be installed on Jungmannovo Square, in the passage of the Koruna Palace, in the VAN GRAAF fashion house and in The Forum Palace. The paintings will be installed in the Myslbek shopping gallery and in showcases in the Koruna Palace passage.
The exhibition is organized by the Association of the New Town of Prague and was established with the support of the City District of Prague 1.
Organiser
Sdružení Nového Města pražského (SNMP)
SNMP (Association of the New Town of Prague) was established 15 years ago (2005). It develops activities aimed at the cultivation and development of the city center of Prague and especially Wenceslas Square as a key public space of our country. We take care of this area and at the same time we put pressure on state administration and local municipal authorities to take care of it as well.
We want the city center of Prague as a living public space for all residents and visitors of Prague.
A place where people feel pleasant and happy to spend their time.
A place inspiring and dignified.
A place we can be proud of.
A place that has its own unique atmosphere.
A place that does not lose its authenticity.
A place where people live and live well.
The association represents citizens as well as important companies, shops, banks, hotels, restaurants, palaces, and residents based on Wenceslas Square and its surroundings. The main mission of the association is to take care of this unique place and its development. Its members recognize that an integral part of a functioning society is its civic sector, which creates an active civil society to become an interpreter of the general public’s attitudes in cases of mismanagement, to raise awareness and contribute to redress in cases where interventions of the state are insufficient or harmful. In particular, a functioning civil society motivates citizens to take an active part in the functioning of society, in decision-making or in solving problems, and strengthens their awareness of belonging and responsibility for public affairs as „their affairs“.
Patron of the exhibition
„The story, the vision, the idea that gets the physical dimension is a kind of miracle. The means of expression are evolving. New technologies, conceptual art, … enrich creations. But the statue itself is still irreplaceable because a passion for the mass and material cannot disappear in people… city centre is a kind of „arena of reality“. This place will quickly show what pieces of art can endure, live without explanations and enrich the environment. This incredibly important experience is also an exceptional opportunity for young sculptors to present themselves to the general public,“says Lukáš Rittstein, head of the sculptural studio of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, about his exhibition and his students.
Lukáš Rittstein
(1973) is a Czech sculptor characterized by both abstract and realistic biomorphic sculptures. Rittstein’s sculptural work is permeated by the phenomenon of dialogue between various sculptural approaches and materials. Travels to Papua New Guinea with the painter and photographer Barbora Šlapetová in 1997-2008 had a great influence on Rittstein’s work. For his work he was awarded by the Jindřich Chalupecký Prize (1999) for young talented artists and the Magnesia Litera Award (2005) for his book he wrote together with Barbora Šlapetová Why the Night is So Black.
MgA. Michal Č. Šembera, curator
M. Č. Šembera’s work in real life examines various forms of social systems rooted in everyday processes, permeations, and procedures. Cooperation with real life, examines structures through their subsequent mediation. Often used abstraction embodies the form of a complex urban idea evoking and mapping a highly emotional and psychological terrain.
The body-shape, seemingly under pressure and resistant to various aesthetic and other excesses, is a recurring motif. He avoids any conventional concept of beauty, or in many cases even interest. These works privilege gesture instead of form, where identity often approximates a kind of function or technicality.
Foreword of the curator
VáclavART is literally an exhibition of exhibitions of sculptures, objects, paintings, and installations by independent artists.
The fourth consecutive solo exhibition, VáclavART, seeks to explore aspects of the labyrinthine connection of coincidences, inconsistencies, and relationships in the extensive expression of contemporary art by young artists. This exhibition is organic and intuitively natural. It seeks to extend this independence of visions, through individual semiotics, figurations, inwardness and external visuality.
Although there is no obvious link between the works, the representatives are the greatest conversations between collectors, artists, curators, and institutional representatives.
M. Č. Šembera
Authors
Patrik Adamec
(*1994, Chomutov)
I am currently entering the 4th year at the Academy of Fine Arts, where I am studying in the studio of Lukáš Rittstein.
An inescapable idea. A skeleton in the closet. Elephant in the room. Bad dream. Therapy. These are just some of the impressions that come to my mind when I look at these characters. Inhaling the life of the material, and thus creating space, is my passion. I transform basic materials into complex units or recycle the shape of discarded objects. With burning care and craftsmanship, I process things that ultimately say nothing … concrete. However, what they say always depends partly on the observer. Even though a specific vision always leads me to the work, often the final product tells its own story based on the observer’s experience. What comes to Your mind?
MgA. Matouš Háša
(*1992, Pelhřimov)
Matouš studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (J. Zeithamml, V. Míča) in 2012–2018 and completed internships at the Libera Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence (2013–2014) and at Middlesex University in London (2017).
Last year, his solo exhibition Identity Shapes took place at the HYB4 Gallery in Prague. His participation in joint exhibitions includes Traces in London’s Ply Gallery (2017), Salm Modern # 1 / Possibilities of Dialogue in the Salm Palace of the National Gallery in Prague (2019), Revolutionary 30/30 Years of Freedom on Your Own Skin in the Pop-up Gallery in Prague (2019) or this year’s Dream in a Dream / Edgar Allan Poe and art in the Czech lands taking place in the Trade Fair Palace of the Prague National Gallery.
MgA. Michal Hradil
I have always been interested in what is below the surface and how things work. I was interested in their internal structure and the order according to which they are composed and designed. This, of course, was reflected in my overall thinking and view of the world around me.
I research almost all things, but also feelings, in depth and I think about them a lot. Sometimes too much. I also research things that may seem uninteresting to others. I try to find their order, which is reflected in my work mainly in geometry and symmetry. I perceive construction as a basic building block. Although it is not normally visible, it is very important. That is why I highlight it.
I intentionally use basic geometric shapes. For a thing to work, it must not be unnecessarily complicated and over-technological. The work also largely reflects my personality, both consciously and unconsciously.
MgA. Markéta Kolářová
(*1993, Svitavy)
Markéta Kolářová is a painter, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts, who last year presented objects connecting painting and sculpture at VaclavART. This year, you will meet her large-format paintings from the Midsummer series in the Myslbek shopping gallery. This series of paintings is dedicated to the Midsummer Night’s celebrations and refers to the mysterious, magical night of the summer solstice.
Markéta’s work is characterized by a relaxed painting of selected themes. Figures and landscape motifs are abstracted into dynamic, gesturally shaped shapes and blurred, slightly nebulous shapes. The starting point for her is a sensory, physical, and emotional experience, which she processes and transforms into a painting performance. The paintings in front of us open a scene where dreamy, magical scenes take place. The generosity of the formats allows you to enter the space of images and experience their atmosphere. This atmospheric and at the same time physical experience is very important for understanding Markéta’s paintings. Her paintings are staged and at the same time open to us. Imaginative and physical movement is a natural part of them.
Anna Krninská
(*1996, Jindřichův Hradec)
Anna graduated from SUPŠ Sv. Anežka Česká in Český Krumlov in the field of stone sculpture, then she spent 3 years at the Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of Lukáš Rittstein and now has her second year in the studio of Vojtěch Míča, where she transferred.
Anna is a co-organizer of the Badespasstotal symposium-festival in Czech Canada, where she exhibits some of her work every year.
In Anna´s work, she mainly deals with sports. She enjoys creating sports activities in various materials, which she engages in in normal life. Among the latest works are, for example, the statue of Biker in a sandstone block of stone, the cement-wire position of Věra Čáslavská or the life size Skiffer that you may have seen on VaclavART in recent years.
This year, this dragon (Anna rides competitively on dragon boats and is the captain of the crew „Vajgarská sleigh“) will exhibit two statues of Paddlers. One wooden one with metal elements and a spade instead of a paddle, which was created at the time of quarantine as such a warm-up exercise, and the other modelled and cast in cement. The third art piece Anna will introduce you to is plaster-cement Miss Vanda in socks.
MgA. Dagmar Kropáčová Morová, DiS.
(*1990, Praha)
Dagmar graduated from SUPŠ in Turnov and VOŠ in Jablonec nad Nisou. This year she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of Figural Sculpture and Medal of Vojtěch Míča.
Dagmar deals mainly with figural creation through mass, thanks to which she is constantly looking for and defining shape. She works with certain rules and procedures that help her simplify access, shape function, including format and material.
At this year’s VáclavART exhibition, the author will present one of her sculptures from her diploma works.
The statue is called IMPRINT and it is made of concrete. With this sculpture, the Dagmar wanted to confront a man with himself, with his loneliness in the middle of the mass, operating on the basis of crowd, chance and obedience.
„One being in a crowd of sexes, one statue and x phases. X statues and each time they become a different carrier of energy and a different message. As a message, a language without words. As a cover, a box.“
MgA. Mikola Emma Ryšavá, DiS.
(*1990, Praha)
Nikola Emma always dwelt on a variety of creative expressions, making artwork an easy choice for her. From the study of ceramics to the design of wooden toys, she went to study sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, a field in which she feels she could finally fully realize herself.
Her body of work is full of surreal often anthropomorphic figures, sometimes grotesque, emotional, and other times macabre. Creation often stems from literature, her inner world, and from her amateur interest in psychoanalysis. Her sculptures stand between fiction and reality, as they are inspired by her own experiences and feelings as well as mythology, death, and horror.
Nikola Emma graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 2019, she will showcase her newest artworks, in which she was capturing her complicated relationship with art as such. She reinterprets the classical depiction of saints and religious motifs in her own sculptural language while trying to artistically process her own faith in art as a discipline.
Nikola Emma has exhibited in various places overseas and in the Czech Republic and studied abroad in Australia and Portugal.
Radek Směták
(*1993, Zlín)
Radek is an upcoming graduate of the sculpture studio at the Academy of Fine Arts. In his work, he flirts with the fragility and sharp geometry of shapes. However, he does not only use sculptural expressions, but runs to work with other media and is not afraid to experiment.
At present, Radek focuses on the transferred natural aesthetics that occur in design, architecture, and other human creative expressions. He tries to connect this direction in the works, and at the same time follow the rational approach connected with enthusiasm from the experiences of Zen meditation. This unfolds only to the current sublimating crystalline objects escaping into the atmosphere.
Sára Svobodová
(*1996, Poděbrady/Nymburk)
Sára is entering the 5th year of her studies at MgA. Lukáš Rittstein studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Her previous studies at the Academy of Fine Arts took the path to stone restoration, this year she changed her field to sculpture.
She graduated from SUPŠ sv. Anežka Česká in Český Krumlov – a field of stone sculpture, where since 2015 she has been exhibiting a statue of the Bear in the square at Christmas festivities.
This year, she broke away from everything she knew and let her courage permeate. As part of the VáclavART exhibition, she presents statues of gorillas, in which Sára projects her lost childish playfulness and courage in the search for inner strength. In Sára’s work, she is interested in animal anatomy and the similarities between animals and humans, whether physical or personal.
Barbora Šemberová
(*1992, Praha)
Cycle From the Regions, dry and oil pastel, acrylic marker, on canvas, 2020
Barbora is a 5th year student in the painting studio of Josef Bolf and Jakub Hošek (1st to 3rd year of Michael Rittstein). Before transferring to the academy, she completed a bachelor’s degree in the studio of Illustration and Bookbinding at the FDU of Ladislav Sutnar in Pilsen.
In Barbora´s work she deals with wedding rituals and customs associated with natural cycles and folk traditions – their origin and transformation to the present times. In free associations, she uses individual elements and symbols from these ritual activities. Barbora works with aesthetics close to illustration and from individual symbols she composes stories with a disturbing atmosphere, which at the same time tell the „fairy tale“ of our lives. She chooses several approaches – especially drawing on paper, but also drawing on wood, wooden and ceramic objects. In recent works, Barbora has proceeded thematically directly to the folk tales, which reflect the mentality of people from the time they were told, and their directness and often cruelty points to what we were and what we are like today.
As part of VáclavART, she exhibits a series of 17 drawings based on the atmosphere of these fairy tales. The paintings are based on specific experiences from trips around the Czech regions, villages, hills, and forests.
MgA. Adam Velíšek
(*1990, Praha)
Adam graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of figural sculpture and medal with prof. Jan Hendrych. He was a laureate of the Junge Kunst 2016 in Passau.
He exhibits two concrete sculptures of dog torsos at VáclavART.
Adam intentionally works with the simplification and generalization of the form. In the case of a torso, he does not seek a portrait of a particular dog but tries to find an idealized basic shape.
Adam devotes himself continuously to the installations of propagated figurative sculptures.
MgA. Marie Videmanová
(*1992, Mělník)
In her work, Marie focuses on corporeality, the imprint of the human body and haptics. Most of her sculptures relate to a figure or are focused on touch. She likes to arouse in the viewer the desire to touch her work and to have other than just visual perception.
At the VáclavART exhibition, the author will present part of her diploma works. In the shop window in the Forum Palace in Jindřišská Street you can see the statue of „Lustra“. According to the name, it is a light sculpture in the form of a chandelier, in which a female figure is printed.
Marie graduated from the Václav Hollar Secondary School of Art in Prague, furthermore she finished bachelor’s studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno in the sculpture studio of prof. akad. soch. Michal Gabriel and last year she completed her sculpture and master’s studies with Mgr. akad. soch. Lukáš Rittstein at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
SHOPPING GALLERY MYSLBEK
Na Příkopě 19
1 | Markéta Kolářová – obrazy
1 Series Midsummer, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2020
EXTERIOR LOCATION OF THE SCULPTURES IN NA PŘÍKOPĚ STREET (between no. 4 – 12)
2 | Patrik Adamec
2a No name
2b No name
concrete, steel , 2020
3 | Dagmar Kropáčová Morová
3 Imprint, concrete, 2020
4 | Nikola Emma Ryšavá
4a Mae
4b Sebastian
4c Bubble
4d Box
fiberglass, steel, 2020
5 | Adam Velíšek
5a Torso of a dog
5b Torso of a dog
concrete, 2017
6 | Michal Hradil
6 Konstrukt
concrete, steel, 2017
KORUNA, PALAC, Václavské náměstí 1
7 | Barbora Šemberová – obrazy
7 Series From Regions, dry and oil pastel, acrylic marker, on canvas, 2020
8 | Radek Směták
8 Fragile existence, PES fiber, plywood, wood, building mixtures, 2020
FASHION HOUSE VAN GRAAF, Václavské náměstí 17
9 | Anna Krninská
9a Paddler, concrete, 2020 (-1st floor)
9b Vanda, plaster, cement, 2020 (ground floor)
9c Paddler, wood, steel, 2020 (2nd floor Men´s)
10 | Sára Svobodová
10a Gorilla, Monkey Story, plaster, 2020 (2nd floor)
10b Gorila MOMOTARO
concrete, 2020 (3rd floor Exquisite)
THE FORUM PALACE, Jindřišská 3 (corner with Wenceslas square) – reception
11 | Marie Videmanová
11 LUSTRA,white blown glass, steel, iron, 2019
EXTERIOR LOCATION OF THE SCULPTURES, Jungmann square
12 | Matouš Háša
12 Emesis, concrete, 2020
INFO = Exhibition Info Stand
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