As always, the 7th annual sculpture exhibition from the Brno University of Technology (BUT) is both a visual and a cerebral feast. It is spiced with humour, ranging from playful and cartoonish to dark and menacing. Thought-provoking explorations of topical issues and shock tactics add zest to the serving.
As in the past few years, the exhibition takes place at Masaryk University’s Botanical Gardens. Traditionalist viewers might find it a curious setting, but legendary modern sculptor Henry Moore would have totally loved it.
Henry Moore’s Mantra
He said:
- 1) “Sculpture is an art of the open air.
- 2) Daylight, sunlight is necessary to it, and for me
- 3) its best setting and complement is nature.
- 4) I would rather have a piece of my sculpture put in a landscape… than in… the most beautiful building”
Brno art lovers can judge the truth of this Moore mantra for themselves. They may discover some additional benefits, and also some disadvantages, to a garden setting.
Pasta
The play of sunlight over sculptures is definitely a hugely significant element in one of the best student works on this exhibition, Těstovina (Pasta or Dough) by Tomáš Zelený.
This horizontal spiral created from a single, solid tree trunk is a wonderfully sensuous form. Light and shadows enhance its curves and reveal different contours.
Pasta also proves the value of Moore’s insistence on a landscape setting, because it enables us to walk all around this piece. And regardless of which path you walk along to get to Pasta, it is marvellously satisfying.
Pasta creates relationships with its surroundings. The vertical, still growing massive trunks of the trees behind it both mourn and celebrate Pasta’s prone shape. The old cement frog at the top of the pool tries to commune in water with this upstart newcomer, and Pasta’s architectural cousins, the curving greenhouses behind it, watch over, admire and echo it.
Zelený says “I wanted to name the sculpture ‘The Students Bread’ at first but since Pasta became a more contemporary affordable student meal I decided on this simple and apt title. Just like everyone wants the biggest bite on their plate, I cut down the log in a way that saves most of the used material and offered some generous portion to the viewer too. I also wanted to respect the wooden material as much as possible so I preserved the shape and size of the piece of wood.”
Bubble
In Bubble, by Pavlína Temcsáková, sunlight is again an integral feature of the work. It transforms the organic, repeated shape into a magical holder of prismatic light. Placed lying on the soil, Bubble is like a transparent caterpillar, which is simultaneously also a beautiful chrysalis.
Interestingly, this is the only glass sculpture in the exhibition, and one of only four situated in the greenhouses. The airy, glass-panelled greenhouses are possibly the closest we can get to an ephemeral “non-building” building.
Body Memory
Another work by the same artist, Temcsáková, is situated nearby in the greenhouse. It is called Paměť těla (Body Memory) and is made of Paper Mache. It is an enlarged version of a piece from the previous year which was placed outdoors, but suffered damage from being exposed to the elements. This highlights one obvious disadvantage to garden settings – fragile materials are at risk.
Interestingly, this version of Body Memory is larger, but like last year’s piece it is also suspended from an art deco spiral staircase by ropes. The work provokes a sense of mystery and tension. As humans we want to unbind and release the anthropomorphic shape under the fabric. We want to see what is hidden.
The colour combinations of Body Memory are delicately exotic. The amorphous, organic shape contrasts with the geometric staircase, and harmonises with the creepers slowly tracing around it. The natural setting and the sculpture are mutually influential, and both are caught up in a slow metamorphosis.
Cycle
Another two works are placed in the greenhouse. One is called Cyklus (Cycle), by Jana Vašíčková. This piece is made of pipes, wire, glues and what looks like cement. The monochromatic grey colour of the piece contrasts with all the bright foliage surrounding it. Nevertheless, the exotic outsize bloom which looks slightly vaginal, or a bit like a predatory mouth, has a voluptuous Georgia O’Keefe quality to it. It’s a brave work, welding a geometric stalk to a sumptuous, organic corolla of petals. It is cleverly placed among plants in pots.
Vašíčková explains that “I am not a typical student; I am a mother and a woman of mature age with fifty years of life experience. Sculpting has allowed me true freedom of expression. In my work, I often tackle controversial topics.
“The sculpture ‘Cycle’ represents an intimate portrayal of a woman as a flower, with its centre formed by the female womb. This composition aims to express a woman at the peak of her beauty and strength, captured in a period of transition and life maturation.
“The flower symbolizes the female essence, as it is often compared to a woman. Just like a flower, a woman thrives when cared for, and withers when she lacks the necessary care. The phases of budding, blooming, and shedding petals reflect the various stages of a woman’s life.
“I intentionally chose the colour grey because my generation is often referred to as the grey generation. We grew up during the communist era when self-confidence was suppressed, and most of us followed the patterns of our mothers, who selflessly took care of the children and the family and had no room for any ambitions or self-realization.
“’Cycle’ is my self-portrait.”
Manifold – a superb placement above giant lily pads
The other work in the greenhouse is by one of the tutors, Tomáš Medek. It is called Manifold, which refers to a mathematical concept of describing a difficult shape in a simple way. It is like the way a flat map refers to the spherical earth. Here the intertwining metallic netting with spikes, weaves in and out of itself. This very cerebral creation hangs poised above a horizontal group of giant lily pads in a pond.
Manifold fascinates as at first we notice the obvious differences between the sculpture and the natural plant life. The sculpture’s synthetic material, and glossy black spiky structure creates a clearly non-organic, vaguely menacing alien form, in contrast to the beautiful organic rippling texture and colours of the lily pads. There is a tension between the weight of the sculpture and the light, floating lily pads. The lily pads will be punctured and damaged if Manifold falls.
But then we realise that the lily pads and Manifold share some common elements. Both have interconnected structures. One organic, one inorganic. There is something hidden in both. We cannot see the exact structure of the lily pads under the water. We cannot see how the Manifold fits together exactly.
This is a superb placement of the sculpture.
One disadvantage, however, of exhibiting in the greenhouses, is that visitors must pay a 120 czk fee to enter, while the rest of the exhibition is free of charge.
Budget-strained families may, therefore, decide to skip these exhibits, which is a pity for both the sculptors and the viewers. Also, more could be done regarding signage for the sculptures in the greenhouses, as a small work like Bubble easily gets lost.
How do other works in the garden attest to Moore’s belief that for sculptures the “best setting and complement is nature”?
Pip – Part Anteater, part machine & part Transformer Toy
Sometimes the student sculptures are perfectly placed to correspond to – and echo – a neighbouring plant form. They do a kind of duet together. Take PIP, by Eva Jahnová. Here the part anteater, part mechanistic, part Transformer toy shape echoes the circular plant in the foreground. It’s a perfect harmony. Seen from a different angle, the PIP seems to be striding through some undergrowth, highlighting the dynamic, almost kinetic air of the work.
Duvet – Absurdist placement
Sometimes the works seem completely out of place and incongruous. This can be part of the meaning. Like Valerie Moravcová’s Peřina (Duvet) which is placed in the formal Japanese pool. It has the realistically billowing shape and look of a dropped duvet. The pink colour adds to the light humour and absurdist quality of this object in the water. It is a duvet out of its normal element. It is off the bed. It’s a fish out of water!
Diver – surreal setting
Occasionally the placing of the sculpture is part of its quixotic meaning, like Potápěč (Diver) by Eliška Jedličková. It’s a surreal delight to see the flippers dangling up to the trees and the sky. This is a wonderful technically skilled piece. The weight of the upside down human form balances on the diver’s elbows. The spine is slightly curved, and the flippers cleverly capture a sense of these half human, half marine shapes being moved by a swell of water.
Again, when it is irresistible for the viewer to see a sculpture against different backdrops, and in various shadows and sunlight, we know it’s a particularly successful piece. We, the viewers, dance around the sculpture.
Child’s Blanket
In Eliška Klokočníková’s Dětská Deka (Child’s Blanket) a crumpled shape looks convincingly like an accidentally dropped blanket. We have all seen a little blanket left behind somewhere. It is technically excellent, and is interestingly covered in car paint, which makes it look like fabric, but gives it weather resistance at the same time. There is a sense of pathos in the separation of the object from its owner.
Provocative Clown – startling, menacing and ridiculous
Perhaps one of the most startling and provocative pieces is Klaun (Clown) by Andrea Krnáčová. It is a scary clown, with traditionally marked eyes, but these are spray painted quite roughly, and not carefully outlined. His body is truncated to just the face. Klaun has a vivid red, gaping open square mouth, and a hat shaped like a partially erect penis, painted bright green. It is positioned above a serene little pond, and in contrast is loud and attention grabbing. The phallic hat is both menacing and ridiculous. Aggressor and also victim? The power of the piece lies in this ambivalence.
Krnáčová explains that “When creating this sculpture, I started from sketches in which I expressively and intuitively work with text describing various life situations.
“In this particular piece I took the approach of layering individual letters to create an abstract shape. I processed these texts using virtual reality tools, which allows me the same expressive approach that I used to create the sketches. The meaning of the text is the starting point for completing the visual, but it remains illegible to the viewer.”
First Technocrat
A neighbouring piece is Prvý Technokrat (First Technocrat) by Jakub Matušek. Here there is some poignant humour in the part humanoid, part computer AI creature. He may have status as the First Technocrat, but it is clearly not a comfortable existence. He evokes curiosity and also some sympathy.
From some angles the Technokrat seems to be in pain, with the arms trying to support the weight of the hard drive on top of his head, connected with three solid cables. Perhaps he is holding his head in frustration. His position behind some rocks gives him a slightly vulnerable quality, as though just like a human, he needs some shelter.
Drapery
Drapérie (Drapery) by Šárka Stejskalová is a perplexing work, which features a female form draped in a sheet-like cover. It is frustrating, as we want to lift the cover, and see the form. What we can see of the form underneath is detailed and carefully, realistically rendered.
The fact that it is female raises some compelling questions. It is like a veil taken to an absurd degree. Ultra-modesty on the one side contrasting with the confident, fighter-in-a-corner stance of the legs on the other side.
Relationship
In Alžběta Trpáková’s Vztah (Relationship) a primitive human, with stylised hair and solid, block-like feet, crouches in the greenery with a fox draped around his shoulders. The fox is living, not dead, and the two forms are interconnected and in harmony with each other. The man seems to be protecting the animal, and the fox is content to be so close to the human.
Trpáková is the only sculptor to work solely in the very traditional medium of clay. Both the man and the fox share the same warm brown earth colour. This unifying colour invites us to see the two life forms as inextricably linked together.
Depending on the angle, and the time of day, the negative spaces of this work produce deep and dramatic shadows, almost theatrical among the lush greenery of the garden. It is a very pleasing piece, which we can see almost in the round.
Dog in Two Pieces
On first glance, another work by the same sculptor seems ultra-conservative and almost commonplace. However, Trpáková’s Pes (Dog) is a deceptively simple title, because the dog is shockingly cut in half. He is placed next to the fence like an ordinary guard dog. His face is alert and intelligent, his eyes are open, his ears are pricked, but he cannot fulfil the function of guard dog.
The two body segments are carefully positioned so that initially it looks as though a shadow has fallen over the body. Then we get the visceral shock of realizing that we are looking at two separate pieces – the head and front legs, and the torso, back legs and tail. This surgically precise looking separation provokes in some viewers a barely controlled impulse to reunite the two segments.
Man with a Child
Tomáš Pavlacky’s piece Muž s dítětem (Man with a Child) elicits a very different response. It seems a very cerebral exploration, and while we can roughly imagine a standing man carrying a child, or having a child emerge from his head, it asks more questions than it answers. The smooth oval base suggests something egg-like and nurturing, and contrasts with the rough surface of the vertical form.
Unfinished – toilette a la Toulouse-Lautrec
Another work highlights an element of deliberate incompleteness in its title. Nedokončená (Unfinished) by Zuzana Šrubařová invites us to wonder why. Why is the work Unfinished? The unidealised body of the woman is carefully rendered, with a slight contrapposto twist, but the features of the face are not clearly defined, and nor are the hands.
Nevertheless, there is a gentle charm about this work. Viewed through the trees it’s as though we see the person at their unselfconscious toilette. There is a faint echo of Toulouse-Lautrec’s drawings of dancers washing themselves.
Parasite
Tomáš Zdvořáček has chosen possibly the most ambitious, unconventional and brave placement for his sculpture Parazit (Parasite). This is facing downwards, along the trunk of an old tree. His white 3-D printed, part human, part animal, part mythological, part Disney-like creature is secured with multiple cable ties and ropes.
It almost works, but Parasite has to concede perfect organic placement to its neighbouring parasite, – a lush creeper which swings gently from the tree branches down to the ground. Zdvořáček’s Parasite has carefully avoided inflicting harm on its host, and is more of a puzzling fun foreign presence. Uber-modern in shape, Parasite’s hybrid artistic ancestors go all the way back to the likes of the ancient Sphinx and other human/animal combi-creatures.
Young Gardener
Zahradník (Young gardener) is a 3D printed work by Professor Michal Gabriel. The young gardener is perfectly positioned standing at the slim trunk of a sapling birch tree. He is holding some shield-like object in either hand around the trunk. At different times of the day the delicate shadows of leaves decorate the gardener’s hair and body.
He looks upwards at the tree, and leans slightly towards it. From every angle we enjoy the echoing relationship and correspondences between the organic, slim form of the young tree and the beautiful young man.
Don’t miss this exhibition. It is on until 30 September.
