The present exhibition continues the Moravian Gallery’s and the MAK’s concept of focusing on parallels between the oeuvre of Josef Hoffmann and stances of international contemporary artists—this time Prague-based sculptor Stanislav Kolíbal—in order to do justice to Hoffmann’s significance as a groundbreaking architect and designer of the early 20th century. In 2012, the complex theme of Plane – Line – Space and the two artists’ individual approaches to these phenomena will be given a closer look using selected works drawn from the MAK and from a private collection.
It was with the major exhibition
Labil-Stabil (Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, 2000), at the latest, that Stanislav Kolíbal (born in Orlová in 1925) gained international recognition as an important exponent of abstract sculpture. And for the past two decades, Kolíbal has been dealing inten - sively with questions as to the permanence, stability, and ins ta bility of sculptural forms. He is particularly interested in abstract forms and the creation of para doxes, and less so in represen tations which conform to reality. In order to emphasize the distinction between his earlier sculptures and the drawing- and ground plan-based works that he created in Berlin between 1988 and 1989, the artist decided to call the latter “buildings.” Several pencil drawings from this period were later on to serve him as starting points for three-dimensional constructions.
The ambivalent perception of space and the special sense of design which characterize Kolíbal’s drawings, reliefs, and constructions can also be discerned in works by Hoffmann when the two artists’ respective works are juxtaposed; as a result of his direct and inten - sive collaboration with craftsmen working for the Wiener Werk stätte, Hoffmann had adopted an entirely flat drawing style, similar to Stanislav Kolíbal’s.
Curator Rainald Franz,
MAK Curator Glass and Ceramics (acting head)
It was with the major exhibition
Labil-Stabil (Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, 2000), at the latest, that Stanislav Kolíbal (born in Orlová in 1925) gained international recognition as an important exponent of abstract sculpture. And for the past two decades, Kolíbal has been dealing inten - sively with questions as to the permanence, stability, and ins ta bility of sculptural forms. He is particularly interested in abstract forms and the creation of para doxes, and less so in represen tations which conform to reality. In order to emphasize the distinction between his earlier sculptures and the drawing- and ground plan-based works that he created in Berlin between 1988 and 1989, the artist decided to call the latter “buildings.” Several pencil drawings from this period were later on to serve him as starting points for three-dimensional constructions.
The ambivalent perception of space and the special sense of design which characterize Kolíbal’s drawings, reliefs, and constructions can also be discerned in works by Hoffmann when the two artists’ respective works are juxtaposed; as a result of his direct and inten - sive collaboration with craftsmen working for the Wiener Werk stätte, Hoffmann had adopted an entirely flat drawing style, similar to Stanislav Kolíbal’s.
Curator Rainald Franz,
MAK Curator Glass and Ceramics (acting head)
