Ladislav Jezbera | Ego
17/06/22–04/09/22

curator: Judita Kožíšková | White Cube

In the White Cube, the author uses an almost scientific and biological approach to explore how genetic predeterminations shape our “I”. They are coded into every cell of our body. Circular elements allude to cell structures, which the author enclosed in plexiglass hanging images (the series Horizon of Events (Horizont událostí) and Eukarya, 2022) along with powdered pigment. When the two sheets come together, a static field causes the powder to expand and form a “drawing”, forever locked into the frame and therefore unchanging, similar to DNA. The motif of the circle also symbolizes cyclicity – the regular movements of celestial bodies influencing human behavior, or the starting point – “horizon” – of our personality’s growth. The collection of marble objects XY (2020–2022) represents a male chromosome transformed into a “bar code”. The individual parts of the work may, in their attacking shape or position, evoke weapons such as bombs, which remind us of the fact that the most fundamental and often darkest events in human history have to do with the male element.

Aware that humans are also formed by outer influences, Jezbera incorporated a series of drawings called Study of the Horizon (Studie horizontu, 1988) by Jiří Valoch from the GMU’s own collection, which capture “fragmented silhouettes” of a landscape and found natural materials. Jezbera is in dialogue with Valoch’s series through the work Arché (2020), in which he allows the natural properties of a particular material to resonate, namely Carrara marble, the creation of which is accompanied by similarly chaotic events, which form the character of the landscape surrounding us.