Premio Fondazione di Venezia per The Venice Glass Week:
Awarded to the best project in the festival.
Our exhibition Czech Glass, Quo Vadis!? won the competition of two hundred international projects at The Venice Glass Week.
The exhibition, that was prepared for the fifth year of the international glass festival The Venice Glass Week by Art Lines company, is called Czech Glass, Quo Vadis?! It works on both levels - literally and as a rhetorical question. It is therefore a kind of reflection on the paths that Czech studio work takes in glass art, what is special about it and what challenges it faces today. It will suggest what level has the contemporary Czech author's glass reached in more than 60 years after its phenomenal success at EXPO 58 in Brussels.
The presented artists are diverse in terms of their age, and therefore also in terms of their professional experience - among them there are older, experienced and established professionals, prominent representatives of the middle generation at the top of their careers, and also those who are at the beginning of their artistic career. It is natural that each generation continues the tradition of its predecessors, but at the same time tries to define and lead an active creative dialogue with it. Building on their actions is a challenging task, but it also provides a strong motivation. Younger creators are naturally forced to seek, develop and try new approaches and techniques, to set out in unexplored directions, to find their own distinctive artistic expression.
Michal Macků
" There is nothing accidental in a person's life. Life is a process and a development. You can revolve around one topic or keep changing topics, there is always a more or less hidden motive for your actions in the background, which drives you and gives all of this direction and meaning. ”
Jaroslav Róna
"Often the sculptures appear to me already completed when I am almost awake early in the morning, so the materials are determined in advance. But if the form allows it, I try to use different materials on one statue. When the same sculpture is made in bronze and then in granite or glass, it has a quite different type of energy. The bronze is hollow, when you tap it, it sounds. The stone acts totally, radiating energy for a long time. The one it absorbs during the day, and emits at night. In the case of glass, the penetration of light into the glass mass can result in effect of a kind of dematerialization, which brings the viewer optical pleasure."
Vladimíra Klumpar
"I'll slow down, I'll start having time to observe. And something always opens up in me. When I neither overthink it, nor contemplate too much, then suddenly the moment comes and things just happen."
Zdeněk Lhotský
"I always try to start from scratch. I will never follow-up on something I have done before. I approach it with a completely clear head, as if I didn't know anything. When I have the feeling that inspiration is coming my way, I create at a stretch. When you do something without passion, it's wrong."
Klára Horáčková
"Inspiration is everywhere. One immerses himself into thinking about what he is doing, what he would like to do, and this accompanies him day and night. Whatever he sees, he compares to what he has in mind. I am interested in the principles of how the world works. For me, art is a way of knowing and interpreting reality. The way I communicate with the world. "
Petr Stanický
"I'm interested in the relationship between an object and space. I tried to define how I perceive space - as a quantity that can be perceived more intuitively than the object itself. For me, space is a more visually impressive quantity and in my site-specific installations space is what primarily affects the objects that arise in it. Glass sculpture can be visually captivating and original, but there is more space for me in the space-object relationship. It's all around us, we all feel it intuitively. "
Martin Janecký
"I'm very interested in the psyche of the object I'm working on, everything that can be expressed or depicted using glass. I have been trying for a long time so that it does not end with the fact that it is a human face made of glass, but that it also emits emotions. That's very important to me. "
Michaela Spružinová
"Any gluing with glue is considered a degradation of all my work, everything must remain authentic, laborious, complicated. The long and demanding manufacturing process is important for the development of the work. Over time, the body 'grows and is arranged into a hybrid. Imperfections in the surface or shape are an integral part of it. They reflect the true reality of processing of old glass at home. And they also reflect imperfections of my body and human labour, which could, of course, be replaced by the current technology of machine-made bars or a milling cutter to produce a perfect mould. But I would have been less me since I always choose the more difficult path for self-realisation. "
Luba Bakičová
"Glass acts as a perfect recording device of fleeting space-time situations and has the ability to provide permanent evidence of them. On the contrary, concrete retains its original shape in all circumstances. I focus on the contrast of these two materials, where fragile glass becomes an active action factor and concrete the main static pillar of the building. Their mutual relationship creates a great tension, which I try to use artistically in my works. "
Tomáš Krejčí
"I often work with what I see around me. I observe what we come across every day, what makes up our environment, what we produce. I use glass as a material used in a different context than what is commonly perceived. I am looking for new material relationships with an emphasis on their essence, often purely intuitively. I like to underline the fragility of glass, as well as its uniqueness. I enjoy the creation of new forms and I see the meaning of creation in that. "