Jiří Příhoda’s exhibition entitled VOID has opened at the Rudolfinum Gallery in Prague. The largest exhibition of the Czech sculptor so far offers installations on the borders of architecture and sculpture.
In Jiří Příhoda’s work, mapping of buildings and objects, situations between functional and autonomous have always played a major role. He often uses architectural materials for his sculptural installations, which are also valid as object studies. The practical functions of the constructions he created are almost always overshadowed, although this does not mean that his works can only be viewed: at his largest exhibition opened in Rudolfinum on 28 April, you can walk into several of his works, and experience the installations and their relationship with their surroundings from several perspectives.
The exhibition also features three new works (Rig, Quantumcraft and Hall 7) and two key pieces from the 1990s. In addition to the fact that Příhoda thinks out of use in a way that is not typical of architectural thinking, an important element of his works is emptiness and its space-shaping role.
“I’d like the visitors to come to the gallery, look around and see just how differently gallery space and structure can be developed. My chosen title VOID can be translated into Czech in many different ways. I’d like to emphasize the first and for me incipient meaning—invalid. To some extent, I’m invalidating gallery space, reconstructing it with my sculptural objects and installations and trying to guide the viewer towards new ways of looking at the space of the gallery. The visitor will see emptiness around and inside my artworks,” says the creator.
The installations in the neo-renaissance building of Rudolfinum contrast with the visual world of the receiving space and maintain a casual relationship with it—references to canons of antiquity are also included in the works of Příhoda.
Jiří Příhoda: VOID (28 April—28 August 2022)
Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague
Curator: Petr Nedoma
Photos: ©Archive of Jiří Příhoda, Martin Polák, Galerie Rudolfinum
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