Michaela Vélová Maupicová is primarily known as a painter, but her work needs to be viewed as essentially multimedia, process-oriented, and always open to experimentation. The motifs that the author focused on in her paintings have their counterparts or parallels in drawings, prints, and objects, as well as in photographs and videos that reveal a lot about her contemplating. The exhibition “Noise in Honeycomb, Light in Tumulus” presents a selection of short video art works by Michaela Vélová Maupicová that have only been marginally presented to the public.
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The exhibition presents a cross-section of the work of a native of Hradec Králové, a painter and world traveler who transformed his fascination with the visible world and its absurdist poetry into an inimitable painterly celebration of human society. Through key works from various decades (from the 1960s to the present day) – further complemented by an extensive set of drawings – visitors to the exhibition can follow the gradual crystallization of the artist’s visual poetry.
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The landscape under the Krkonoše mountains in the north of the Czech Republic is not only scattered with Baroque monuments, large and small, but is also home to a stonemasonry tradition which continues the legacy of the 18th century sculptor Matyáš Bernard Braun, and his followers. The name Wagner is synonymous with this tradition, and first appears in parish registers in the regions of Jaroměřsko and Královévodsko as early as the 18th century.
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The monumental and decorative Foyer of the Hradec Králové gallery used to be the entry hall of a bank. This space inspired Ladislav Jezbera to create an installation reacting to the monumentality of the entry hall as well as to the noble material used in its grandiose decoration – marble. The black-and-white annealing of the five-meter-long polyester blocks, from which he created three independent objects, is supposed to imitate the structure of the marble. Even the industrial mode of production used to create the blocks reminds one of the process through which marble forms in nature, including the accidental mixing of light and dark particles. The artist thus knowingly works with similarity and contrast between the marble paneling of the Foyer and the economically more accessible artificial material, the overproduction of which by “egocentric” humans is overwhelming the planet. It is as if, with their monumentality, the statues seek to compete with the entry hall. In the end, however, their “mimicry” causes them, rather, to blend into the space while also architecturally completing it and expanding the ways we can perceive it as spectators. The statues are ecologically and economically gentle – the borrowed, prefabricated polyester will be returned to the manufacturer after the end of the exhibition to be recycled.
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