The exhibition in the Trade Fair Palace’s Small Atrium will echo the show of Stanislav Kolíbal (1925) at the 58th International Biennale in Venice. This show presented his earlier works from the 1960s and 1970s as well as his recent ones.
Kolíbal’s life and work fully reflects the biennale’s theme – the old Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times.” Time is one of the basic elements in Kolíbal’s work; various periods in his life brought different ways of perceiving the artistic process. Kolíbal had successful exhibitions in prestigious international institutions, but after an exhibition in Milan in 1973, he was forbidden to show his works abroad. The ban was lifted in 1979, and Italy remained at the centre of Kolíbal’s attention.
For Kolíbal, the presentation at the Venice Biennale thus also meant a symbolic return to his international beginnings. In his project, he calls for a greater understanding of the artistic process, placing emphasis on independent voices whose aesthetic connects the various “interesting times” from the postwar period to our present.
