Anna Hulačová: Bucolica

The exhibition Bucolica by Anna Hulačová (born 1984, Sušice, Czech Republic) at Kunstraum Dornbirn opens up a world that seems technologically futuristic and yet is steeped in ancient narrative tradition, mythological symbolism, and references to the history of images, profoundly probing the themes of agriculture and ecology. To this end, Hulačová develops a narrative dialectic of reality and fiction, utopia and dystopia. Her sculptures take the form of hybrid beings and machines that oscillate in transitory modes between the representational and the abstract. She combines concrete, ceramics, wood, and honeycombs in a masterly craftsmanlike style. Through the exciting interplay of industrial aesthetics and natural materials, she formally and playfully addresses the depths of the conflict between the idealisation and industrialization of agriculture, civilization and nature, community and individualism, tradition and progress.

In Dornbirn, her figures appear as workers caught between ritual, myth and modernity, their concrete bodies marked by ornamental faces and organic cavities. Honeycombs, recurring as symbols of renewal, link the beings to ancient narratives and to a fragile ecological present. Architectural elements recall the monumental logic of agricultural production, setting the human–machine hybrids within a landscape shaped by progress and its consequences. The scene evokes both communal labour and quiet stasis, suggesting a world suspended between past ideals and future uncertainties. Hulačová fuses folklore, craft and subtle irony into a vision in which rural heritage, technological ambition and existential tension meet—a bucolic myth reimagined for an age of looming transformation.

For more information and pictures, please consult our website: Anna Hulačová–Kunstraum Dornbirn