Jiri Kolar
Poem or Picture
27/03/2003 - 24/04/2003
Ernst Hilger
A-1010 Wien, Dorotheergasse 5
T: +43-1-512 53 15
F: +43-1-513 91 26
hilger@hilger.at
www.hilger.at
Vernissage: 27 March, 19.00 hrs. (until 24 April)
Image: Jiri Kolar, Magic Sombrero, 1973, object
GALERIE ERNST HILGER is proud to present a retrospective of the
Czech poet
and collagist Jiří Kolář, who died last summer at the age
of 89. Jiří
Kolář was the most important Czech artist of the 20th century.
Through his
international single exhibitions and his participation in exhibitions at
the most important art galleries and museums throughout the world his
style of presenting and expressing art has become an established feature
in art history. The exhibition is a selection of collages and smaller
three-dimensional works in space of the highest museum quality, covering
the period 1960 to 1990. Already two years ago, we were able to show
some
of his important works, in cooperation with the Egon Schiele Centrum at
Krumlov. The works shown now will also be exhibited in a single
presentation at Art Basel.
Jiří Kolář was born in Protivin, Czech Republic, in
1914. In the forties,
he was member of “Art Group 42″. His publications and his public
statements regarding the political regime ultimately led to prolonged
prison sentences (in the fifties). Until 1989 the artist lived in
Prague,
he then went into exile in Paris. The artist spent the final years of
his
life again in his home country.
Jiří Kolář published 10 monographies, 10 anthologies,
children’s books,
catalogues, etc. Furthermore, we have before us a very voluminous
œuvre of
pictures. A ban was imposed on the export of his works which were
declared
to be part of the Czech national heritage.
The artist was known for his inventive spirit and his literary
œuvre, for
which he was also acclaimed by his colleagues. When producing collages,
this constituted for him a correlation and supplement to his work with
language. Collages and poems were special intellectual moments in his
life, which took place immediately before putting a poem on paper or
making a collage. These were two options of putting his intellectual
perceptions into concrete form. The pencil is exchanged against
scissors,
old newspaper and glue. The collages show pictures, reliefs and objects.
The style and the design method were adapted according to the conditions
of or the statement in every specific case. Innovative artistic
techniques
were the result which – through the interaction of giving them a
title –
again picked up language as an artifact (rolaz, prolaz, muchlaz, chiasmaz, asamblaz, stratefy).
The artist created some uniformity by producing the same surface
structure
for the printed paper. It irritates the viewer that the artist refuses
to
endow objects with their own material nature. Jiří Kolář
draws the
viewer’s attention to the essential point, to his artistic action. The
quotations from different periods in art history demonstrate his
particular sense of humor and wit, as well as his irony.
For additional images and text material please visit www.hilger.at
