Sculpture Line
Prague 2023

1.1. — 31.12.2023

The next SCULPTURE LINE festival will again introduce you to sculptures and art objects of leading home and international artists in the "open air" gallery. Czech streets, squares and other public spaces will decorate dozens of fine art works of famous and young artists from both, czech and from abroad.

The purpose of the exhibition is to enhance and enrich the public space, to offer a new look to cities and to the works of art, both for the inhabitants and for the visitors.

We invite you to the streets. Join the Line, enjoy the Line!

Boat

Boat

Alexandra Koláčková (*1964)

Chodov Park V parku 8, 148 00 Praha 11-Chodov
The work has a weight of approx. 1840 kg (3.4 x 1.15 x 1.47 m height) and we can reach it by hand from the parking space to a maximum distance of 12 m. It is not a boat in the true sense of the word. It is and it isn't. But everyone who sees it calls it that, so I guess it is. It's more of a rudimentary symbol of a boat, although in its use it's another piece from my workshop on the theme of the author's "Chairs for the City". I see the symbol as a metaphor for our time, as a vessel on which we all sail together. Depending on our personal settings, we understand that voyage as either joy and mutual friendly communication or fear and struggle. I breathe for the former, which is why this "boat" is so big and colorful. Sit on it for a while with friends, or complete strangers.
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Two armchairs

Two armchairs

Alexandra Koláčková (*1964)

Congress Center 5. května 1640/65, 140 21 Praha 4-Nusle
DEINSTALLED Pieces of art have been commonplace in parks and gardens since anyone can remember. They may be a discreet accessory, an extravagant jewel, a guide or a centrepiece of the garden's design – and the main reason for its existence. An art piece and its placement in the garden can have a deeply personal meaning, or it can be the result of a meticulously focused architectural intent. The creations of Alexandra Koláčková are immediately recognizable and her style unmistakable. And yet despite this – or maybe precisely because of this – they set the narration line of the area in motion in so many different ways... They serve as a decorative piece or a climbing frame; they can be the centre of the universe or a tiny surprise hiding under the bench... And that is why I personally value Alexandra's work so much.  Most gardens are not meant to be just observed, but rather used in active ways – their space waiting to be touched, sat on, jogged through... Everything is permitted – even welcome. The same applies to Alexandra Koláčková's sculptures. Their simple, rounded and approachable shapes as well as their larger than life size outright beg to be climbed on. This has a tremendous benefit for a garden architect like me. A garden, with everything in it, should be inviting, welcoming and open to visitors – it should encourage exploration and discovery. In case of Alexandra's sculptures, this is often literally the case, with hands or even whole bodies inviting visitors to sit, lie or rest on them. Whatever they want and whatever they can think of, be it children, their parents or their imagination.  Kateřina Pospíšilová, garden architect
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GILLES

GILLES

Anja Luithle

Congress Center 5. května 1640/65, 140 21 Praha 4-Nusle
Figures from art history have appeared in my work since 2014. The first comes from a painting by Velasquez, (las meninas), in the center Infanta Margarete Theresa.This work was followed in 2017 by Dürer's Melencolia, by Bronzino's Eleonora of Toledo and by Zurbarán's Saint Francis. In 2023 I completed the sculpture "Gilles", based on a painting by Watteau around 1718/19.The painting shows a man standing in a solitary pose, dressed in a Pierrot costume. Gilles stands rooted to the spot with hanging arms and a melancholic, somewhat helpless look, while his fellow actors are uninterested in him and more vital, seeming to belong to another sphere. The main idea, was to express a basic feeling that was triggered by the constant reports of catastrophes all around us, and this mood seems omnipresent to me.This expresses loneliness and sadness of human beings in front of all what happens in the world.The helpless attitude, being at the mercy and thrown into the world raises deepest questions about the meaning of life and our humanexistence.The secret of the figure lies in its perceived presence and real absence - there is nobody in it, no body, no name, no individual physiognomy. „Gilles“ could be any of us.
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In the beginning was the light

In the beginning was the light

Johannes Pfeiffer

Vyšehrad castle V Pevnosti, Praha 2
Exhibition cycle Sculpture Line Prague on the theme WE GROW TOGETHER. Johannes Pfeiffer is an installation artist. This means that he works primarily on site-specific projects. Both indoors and outdoors. His passion is a dialogue with the space, with the respective architecture, with the respective history. He deals with the architecture and spirit of churches, as well as ancient buildings or abandoned factory halls. He tries to trace the "genius loci" of a place. To do this, he needs access to unconscious knowledge, he needs language and his own ability to use this language to express what he has experienced. In this way, Johannes Pfeiffer succeeds with his installations in creating a dialogue in which both the spiritual and the material become visible, something we would hardly see without the artwork. He addresses our inner self, and so the viewer is also involved in the dialogue. The Rotunda inspired me to create this title. A beautiful title for an art installation on Prague's oldest building. I imagine a beam of light hitting the ground and illuminating the place where the Rotunda is to be built. It's like reliving the choice of place. The white threads are like rays of light hitting the ground. For me, it's like the union of the material with the immaterial. Or a journey from the material to the immaterial. The white rays are thus meant to help the willing viewer to lift their thoughts to the heights, to the supernatural, to the immaterial. The goal is to follow the point of disappearance with the white lines and to reach a moment of reflection that allows us to access from the material to the spiritual, to the mental.
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THE LAST SUPPER

THE LAST SUPPER

Antonín Kašpar (*1954)

Vyšehrad castle Vyšehrad
I have been thinking about the theme of the Last Supper for two and a half years. I was tempted by the attempt to express in sculpture that moment in which two so contradictory things come together - the awareness of what is about to happen and the apparent calm of the meal ceremony. But all the ideas were too descriptive. Until I made a double sculpture called "Chair for Joseph Beuys" ( photo at www.kaspar-sculptures.cz). It's two exactly the same chairs with crosses for backs, facing each other and allowing Beyus to come in, sit down and talk to himself. I then used this double sculpture as a basis for the drawings of "The Last Supper", which consists of 13 identical chairs that are only dimensionally different from Beuys'. Thirteen chairs with crosses for backs was the beginning. But it was only the removal of the table that gave this 13-piece installation meaning and moved me to where I wanted to be in the expression of the idea. I mean, in this case it wasn't so much about the food, but more about the dialogue between the diners. In the installation, there are 6 pairs of chairs facing each other and the last one, the 13th, in the front. They are all the same, and it is not clear whether the one at the head is Jesus, Judas or anyone else the viewer can imagine.
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Reader in an armchair

Reader in an armchair

Jaroslav Róna (*1957)

nám. Franze Kafky Nám. Franze Kafky, Praha 1
The sculpture was created as the third variant of the statue of the Reader, originally intended to be installed in front of a public library building. Paradoxically, however, already at a time when the order was long gone and no library showed interest in it. Nevertheless, I then gradually became very interested in the issue of the statue of a man immersed in the world unfolding in the book. Through the reader's statue I wanted to portray both the reader and the imaginative world of the book. I used an armchair for this purpose. The armchair is a soft and soothing wall that protects us from the pragmatic world around us allowing us to escape into the worlds of imagination and fantasy. It is a dreamy armchair, and the reader is intentionally an anonymous and symbolic figure, easily interchangeable with any reader. At the same time, the armchair adds monumentality to the statue reinforcing the significance and importance of this fragile theme. Last but not least, it is also necessary to pay tribute to the world of paper book at a time when it is threatened (and so are we!) by the aggressive world of information technology and castrated e - books.    
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Kurt Gebauer at Bastion

Kurt Gebauer at Bastion

Kurt Gebauer (*1941)

Bastion Horská 1751/4, 120 00, Praha 2
He created the dwarfs in 1985 for the H. Hůlov Brothers Gallery on their farm in Kostelec nad Černými lesy. The unofficial event was a success and Kurt decided to repeat it in the capital on an official basis at the beginning of perestroika. Not that he longed for artistic satisfaction, let alone fame or money. He was simply annoyed that if artistic ballast, considered art by the cultural strategists, could be presented in public, why couldn't something worthwhile be exhibited at least occasionally... Sculptures of so-called drones, in which the artist addresses his lifelong interest in the human figure. By completely reducing the figure to a lapidary shape, he has achieved a very impressive and, typically for him, humorous, even grotesque result. The sculpture of Trubkouna was made according to the author's precise instructions by the private company for the production of containers Eurointermetall s. r. o. Lucie and Dalibor Kamensky in Rýmařov, who kindly lent the sculpture. (They also made, for example, the sculptures of flowers by Stanislav Diviš, which were on display at his exhibition in Kutná Hora last year.) Large heads or other heads á la bulb is a long-standing theme of Kurt's. The human head is a mysterious object, it can glow with ideas, goodness and can be concreted with stupidity and aggression. And so by looking at them we can meditate on what we are. Heads as non-portraits of all kinds have been perpetrated since at least the mid-1970s. Four two-meter ones were at Jan Palach Square in 2011, at the National Technical Library in 2013, and at the Landscape Festival in Prague. In 2016 in České Budějovice, drunks smashed some of the Headers. Now there is one here. But it's only in our heads. The event is held under the auspices of the Mayor of Prague 2 Ing. Alexandra Udženija.
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