060409: Galerie Ernst Hilger: Jiri Kolár

Galerie Ernst Hilger: Jiri Kolár – Objects and Collages Egg on a sled It remains to be contested if Jirí Kolár (1914 – 2002) was actually the “principal Czech artist of the 20th century”, as stated in the Gallery Hilger press release. Artists such as Frantisek Kupka, Karel Capek, Antonín Procházka, Toyen, Milan Knizak and Jirí Kovanda are definitely also among the most outstanding Czech artists. In any case: Kolár’s assemblages and collages from the 1980s presented at this exhibition are impressive. In the relief “Portrait de Pierre Alechinsky” he lets faraway places bump into one another. This continental drift is caused by atlas clippings mounted delicately next to one another, whereby Istanbul is suddenly found next to Cassis. Kolár also has a foible for star charts, internal organs or colourful wings: they decorate fences, obelisks or a bowl with a head, or stabilize a composition. Kolár glues paper money onto a duck, lets an egg take a sled ride, and hangs a sleeveless shirt over a fence. Besides Kolar’s obviously surrealistic compositions his dealing with language attracts attention: oftentimes his compositions include cuttings from French books, and he enjoys including Arabic or Chinese characters; even Braille is used in his three-dimensional worlds. It may well be that his oeuvre, considering the era in which they were created, seem a bit retro: after the end of the historic Avant-garde only very few artists devoted themselves to collages, at least in their traditional form, using paper, scissors, and glue instead of a scanner and Photoshop. But this does not harm their symbolic mysteriousness, which in turn provokes another controversy. By Nina Schedlmayer Galerie Ernst Hilger 1010 Vienna, Dorotheergasse 5, until 23.04.09 www.hilger.at

Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville

060409

Galerie Ernst Hilger
1010 Wien, Dorotheergasse 5
Tel: +43 512 53 15, Fax: +43 513 91 26
Email: ernst.hilger@hilger.at
http://www.hilger.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr 11-18, Sa 11-15 h

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