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Curator Contemporary

open:7 - 12 PM

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Artist Talk - Moments of Landscape
Curator Contemporary

As part of Prague Museum Night 2024, there will be an Artist Talk with both artists from the current exhibition Moments of Landscape, Maroš Belák and Jan Kovářík, at 8pm and 10pm. The Artist Talk will be led by the exhibition curator, Bára Alex Kašparová. It will also be possible to visit the gallery terrace directly by Čertovka with a view of Charles Bridge. Organic, amorphous, and geometric. Both artists create and depict such landscapes and their fragments in new aesthetic situations. The exhibition Moments of Landscape presents the latest paintings by Maroš Belák (* 1983, Zvolen, SK) and sculptural objects by Jan Kovářík (* 1980, Kyjov, CZE) curated by Bára Alex Kašparová. Intertwining and merging, the transfer of material into planes, and the transformation of a structural network into objects. Both artists are intrinsic landscapists, representing the landscape in its abstract form — in its moments. A constant doubt, which results in the existence of the exhibited paintings, is the principle of Belák's creative process. He engages with the initial surface of the canvas, introducing and creating, stagnating. Another phase and layer of possible destruction and subsequent renewal or transformation follow. Maroš Belák's approach, a graduate of the Drawing and Graphics Studio at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno under the guidance of Svätopluk Mikyta, is a multilayered process. This is evident not only in the resulting image but also in its formal appearance. The framed painting extends through the layering of paint into an object, becoming an archive of thought processes and a record of landscape fragments. The dense surface surpassing the initial intention grows into a synthesis of the whole. Belák's works are deeply rooted in the landscape, both natural and urban. He works with the concept of a fictional landscape, built on a combination of amorphous and geometric shapes. His paintings can be interpreted in many ways — Umberto Eco addressed the issue of ambiguous reading of a work and its manipulation through various intentionally chosen means to achieve emotional and intellectual stimulation in the reader in his work Lector in fabula (Milan: Bompiani, 1979). Direct colors and their contrasts, the tension between the edge and the point, the unexpected entry into another layer. These are some of the expressive means Belák chooses, offering the viewer a constant discovery of aesthetic moments derived from the landscape. Natural structures and the landscape also form the basis of Jan Kovářík's sculptural objects. Coming from a sculptor family of Ludmila and Miroslav Kovářík, and following this formative experience, he studied in the Sculpture 2 studio at the Academy of Fine Arts under the guidance of Jindřich Zeithamml. His monumental organic forms are teeming with networks and structures found in nature, transformed into patterns and designs that create the surface of his works. His pieces draw the viewer into the fascinating morphology of the microcosm, accentuated in a scale proportionate to humans—and often exceeding it, confronting them directly with the mysteries usually hidden from the human eye. The sculptural neologisms that this leading sculptor brings forth are fascinating in terms of their final morphology, enhanced by an experimental approach to materials and their technological processing. Kovářík scales the awareness of the organic landscape, creating a continuous body of spatial visual grammar. Once again, with consistency, he presents works that capture even the subtle nuances of transience.