Sculpture Line
Prague

DEINSTALLED

"That swimmers and other floating ladies is a lifelong theme of mine is probably well known. Feet out of the water is a bit different. It's the above water visible part of the handstand, and that's usually the most joyful display of kids and girls in the water. Well, I'm gonna cut it sometime. Even the people who see it get a kick out of the fooling around, well, how do you find that joy even where the girls usually don't swim, or sometimes swim, but it's just a little too cold to do so? A statue will replace anything - dead poets, saints, and even criminals. So why shouldn't a monument have feet of water when they are a symbol of the most important thing we are here for, the joy of life?"

Forest. Nostalgia for the vanishing wilderness. In a row of "parked" soft matter, they cling to horizontal trunks as the soul clings to the axis of its existence. At the same time, they carry their personal stories "on their backs".

Pieces of art have been commonplace in parks and gardens since anyone can remember. They may be a discreet accessory, an extravagant jewel, a guide or a centrepiece of the garden's design – and the main reason for its existence. An art piece and its placement in the garden can have a deeply personal meaning, or it can be the result of a meticulously focused architectural intent.

The creations of Alexandra Koláčková are immediately recognizable and her style unmistakable. And yet despite this – or maybe precisely because of this – they set the narration line of the area in motion in so many different ways... They serve as a decorative piece or a climbing frame; they can be the centre of the universe or a tiny surprise hiding under the bench... And that is why I personally value Alexandra's work so much. 

Most gardens are not meant to be just observed, but rather used in active ways – their space waiting to be touched, sat on, jogged through... Everything is permitted – even welcome. The same applies to Alexandra Koláčková's sculptures. Their simple, rounded and approachable shapes as well as their larger than life size outright beg to be climbed on. This has a tremendous benefit for a garden architect like me. A garden, with everything in it, should be inviting, welcoming and open to visitors – it should encourage exploration and discovery. In case of Alexandra's sculptures, this is often literally the case, with hands or even whole bodies inviting visitors to sit, lie or rest on them. Whatever they want and whatever they can think of, be it children, their parents or their imagination.

 Kateřina Pospíšilová, garden architect

Forest. Nostalgia for the vanishing wilderness. In a row of "parked" soft matter, they cling to horizontal trunks as the soul clings to the axis of its existence. At the same time, they carry their personal stories "on their backs".

Locked in a metal sphere, a bubble, a prison and isolation at a time when it was necessary to keep a social distance and communication only took place in the online space. The sculpture is a memento of the pandemic, yet it is also a reminder of contemporary life, when, seated in front of monitors, we reflect the rest of the world only by seeing it through parallel viewports, and our surroundings are mirrored in the reflections of the glass....

The statue comes from the Self-Portrait Transformation cycle. It is a profile line of my face which I am not afraid to deform, rotate and thus create a new view of my appearance. The name of the sculpture is Two because every man in the world tries to find himself and most often finds himself and can communicate with himself when seeing own appearance in the mirror. That is why I create mirror images of myself: to find myself through art and make it possible for others to go through this journey, to think and find themselves in this fast-paced time.

The sculpture is a part of the FAT cycle. The whole cycle is dedicated to author‘s fight against the inconspicuous and silent killer – sugar which harms him as well as millions of people around the world. The size of the tongue shows enormous craving for sweets which is even highlighted byirresistible pink colour of cakes. For the auhor, this is the way to deal with addiction and point out both the social problem and the need to fight this deadly trap.

A piece of work from the Drawing in Space (Kresby v prostoru) cycle. The Stumps in the Dark are inspired by children‘s play – waving with a burning stump taken out of the fire. It is an attempt to record and transfer the movement of a hot stump in the dark into a material.

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The Sitting Lioness statue was created as a proposal for a five-meter monumental statue that would enliven and thematically complete the Parukářka hill (the highest peak in Prague) in the specific Prague district of Žižkov. The theme reflects the distinctive (somewhat self-ironic) patriotism of a rebellious, predominantly working-class neighborhood that has always been critical of the ruling establishment. The lioness was designed as a proud partner and at the same time a rival of the official Czech symbol – the two-tailed lion, which symbolically resides on the opposite hill in the premises of Prague Castle. The distinctive ornamental relief on the surface of the statue originally arose for technological reasons, i.e. as a recognized supporting metal frame for attaching the sculpture's forged copper plates, but eventually became an element that turns a simple sculptural subject into a magical object, reminiscent of an Egyptian or Assyrian archaeological artifact.

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He created the dwarfs in 1985 for the H. Hůlov Brothers Gallery on their farm in Kostelec nad Černými lesy. The unofficial event was a success and Kurt decided to repeat it in the capital on an official basis at the beginning of perestroika. Not that he longed for artistic satisfaction, let alone fame or money. He was simply annoyed that if artistic ballast, considered art by cultural strategists, could be presented in public, why not at least occasionally display something worthy...

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The Sloth sculpture series are sculptures whose main theme is female power and everything that falls under it. At first, gentle curves of figural processing, but hiding a big weapon, sensuality, wit, refinement and, of course, intelligence. The processing and material is chosen on purpose. The basic hoof is made of classic colored laminate, which is resistant to weather conditions. The color treatment is again deliberately challenging and even provocative

The monumental golden fly depicts the controversy over what everyone wants. The sculpture was inspired by Adolf Heyduk's poem and the fascination with the insect itself. The fly, so small, useless and annoying, yet beautiful
when viewed in detail under a microscope. A fascinating biological machine that we are unable to perceive with the naked eye. And that is why it has been magnified to a superhuman scale, so that its individual details can be
admired, and so that when confronted, a polemic can be stirred up over its own greatness and perhaps even over happiness, so fragile, so seemingly complex and yet sometimes so easy when one is able to perceive the little
things.

DEINSTALOVÁNO

An experimental object welded from scaffolding tubes, which went through several forms.
The Thunderbird is a mythical creature from the legends of the indigenous peoples of the American continent. The form is inspired by the symbolic representation of the motif in petroglyphs and other artistic expressions of the original inhabitants.

The first impulse of this realization was an intention to complement an intimate place of a private garden with seating with sculpture. A bench in the form of a stylized woman has been created and you can nestle down with a book in her arms or sit down face to face to a close person in a confidential conversation. By being placed in the public space, the statue has gained another meaning that is firmly embedded in my work: acting as an island to enliven the street that you usually just pass through, as an opportunity for a short stop enriched with unexpected aesthetic perception, and as a means of rest.

DEINSTALLED

The sculpture was created as the third variant of the statue of the Reader, originally intended to be installed in front of a public library building. Paradoxically, however, already at a time when the order was long gone and no library showed interest in it. Nevertheless, I then gradually became very interested in the issue of the statue of a man immersed in the world unfolding in the book. Through the reader's statue I wanted to portray both the reader and the imaginative world of the book. I used an armchair for this purpose. The armchair is a soft and soothing wall that protects us from the pragmatic world around us allowing us to escape into the worlds of imagination and fantasy. It is a dreamy armchair, and the reader is intentionally an anonymous and symbolic figure, easily interchangeable with any reader. At the same time, the armchair adds monumentality to the statue reinforcing the significance and importance of this fragile theme. Last but not least, it is also necessary to pay tribute to the world of paper book at a time when it is threatened (and so are we!) by the aggressive world of information technology and castrated e - books.

The pair of happy pigs, executed in white stylized form, is the work of Slovak artist Martin Sedlák. The seemingly banal motif, which may surprise some, is part of the artist's strategy to upset the habitual ways of perception and experiment with different materials, motifs and forms.

Michal Trpák belongs to artists for whom art is a challenge to communicate and an incentive to develop their imagination. His ten-legged, striped Mazlik grazes on the grass like an overgrown stuffed animal. It may be made of concrete and marble, but it still beckons to be stroked, as the artist encourages.

One of the most renowned Czech architects Martin Rajniš likes to cross borders. He creates objects that become distinctive works of art with aesthetic, social and utilitarian functions. Hostivař's Včelín refers to medieval towers with its historicizing octagonal shape and weathervane. But of course, it is primarily home to a bee colony that produces unique golf honey.

David Černý's dominant sculpture In Utero is one of his most important works. In Utero, a six-metre sculpture of a pregnant woman kneeling and holding her head, made of stainless steel, can be perceived by everyone in their own way, but we offer one possible interpretation.

The Fall from 1967 is an emblematic work by Stanislav Kolíbal, a doyen of Czech art and probably the most internationally known Czech artist today. The work was created at the height of the free upsurge of Czech society and art during the increasingly relaxed "sixties", but its message seemed to foreshadow what would become reality in just one year: the fall from freedom into more than twenty years of normalization.

It's been a while since architecture has seen itself in artistic practices, and vice versa. Especially the transformation and play of facades. The recently deceased sculptor Jiří Beránek is a shining example of this, as the sculptural cladding of the main building of the Hostivař golf complex has made not only this architecture and its architect famous worldwide, but also the sculptor who invented this cladding so uniquely.

The red geometric sculpture on the playground was created in the last phase of Karel Malich's work. After a number of years, the artist again needed to step out of the two-dimensional surface of paper into space, and the result is the shells in which he evaluates his lifelong artistic experience. Although it is an abstract onstruction, we can feel both echoes of the human figure and a certain grandeur of landscape formations.

Lukáš Rais's work is characterized by the use of industrially produced components, especially metal rubes. The cluster of pipes placed in the Hostivař playground proves the correctness and expediency of this way. It can be read equally well as an aesthetic achievement or as a certain metaphor for the existence of man in contemporary society.

When looking at Chramost's work Shark in the Gulf, memories of Spielberg's famous film Jaws will surely come to mind, which at the time terrified audiences. The shark's fin, however, is made of concrete, so it is stable and not life-threatening.

Scattered around the golf course were stone jewels - sculptures by Pavel Opočenský, for whom stone is a challenge to make it transparent and lighter, and to work with it as surprisingly as this hard and material medium allows.

Michal Trpák probably already knows that we humans will be replaced by humanoids. We don't know if they will look as the sculptor imagines them, i.e. like marching officials, but certainly when they come in the future to play golf in the future, they might be amused by the sculptor's idea. But beware! Perhaps the artist is warning us with his work if we have not already become humanoids!

The main purpose of this work was to connect the tee box with the fairway on one of the new holes. As there are two holes facing each other on this part of the course, it was necessary to create a covered passage around the lake to ensure the safety of the players. A total of 50 wooden frames in a row with regular spacing create the illusion of impermeable walls when passing through the tunnel. When viewed from the side, however, the tunnel almost completely disappears and only thin partitions remain.

The figure of a walking man with his arm extended forward is perhaps, as the name suggests, a governor, but also a warrior who fell into Hostivaře from another planet. It is assembled like a kit and reminds of sci-fi movies. It's made of metal frames, which confuses the sculptor's fans a bit, because otherwise he likes natural wooden materials.

You may not know this, but Jakub Flejšar is a snowboarder and a snowboard coach, and they, as is well known, like to move and run and then also rest. And because Jakub is also a sculptor, he wants his sculptures to make that experience visible. In a stylized and humorous way.

The rider is the fourth sculpture of the four-piece horse sculpture. It was created between 2010 and 2013. One cast with a smooth surface in a red polyester resin is in Kampa Museum, another one with the whole statue is in a private collection and is part of the golf areal near Brno. Bronze část with smooth surface is part of Kamenný dvůr area. I cast the Rider and the whole sculpture into peanut shells structure and also in the structure of walnut shells. The rider from the peanut shells is made also from bronze.

A statue, running or speeding off, is a symbol of the premises on which it is located. A fragment of the bobsled is transferred into a surreal level where it is carried to the intended destination (the track?) by two pairs of legs.

Coloured glazed ceramics on a reinforced concrete shell. A utility ceramic sofa with organic shapes brings playfulness and optimism into a given public space. In the busy street full of hustle and bustle, the sculpture gives an impression of an island of peace and good cheer, a place where you can “recharge your batteries” with a brief rest.