Burn, Baby, Burn.

HIDDEN Studio

Dec 5

Group Exhibition
HIDDEN Studio
12.12.24 / 26.01.25

🗓 Opening Night: 12th December 2024, 18:00
📍 HIDDEN Studio: Jana Zajíce 32, Prague 7 (located in the courtyard)

I am delighted to open a HIDDEN Studio in close collaboration with artist Monika Havlíčková, presenting the first group exhibition featuring works by Monika Havlíčková, Martin Kolář, and Roman Košťál.

"The most important thing is the way you go through the fire."

– Charles Bukowski

According to the so-called "fire triangle," three conditions are required for combustion: 1. combustible material, 2. air, and 3. ignition temperature. Similarly, the exhibition Burn, Baby, Burn unites the flames of three artists from the AVU (Academy of Art, Architecture, and Design) – two painters and one sculptor – into one intense blaze. It is an egocentric triumvirate of distinct individualities, together composing a chord crafted in the most dangerous keys and premonitions, as Karel Hlaváček (b. Pozdě k ránu) would say, who also wrote about black dolphins dying in fire (b. Podmořské pralesy se ani nezachvěly). Heat and cold, life and death, man and woman – all of these are counterpoints that can be found throughout the dynamic score of the exhibition.

Kolář, in his works, captures fire as the backdrop of a war apocalypse, where apathetic humanity bathes in seas of nuclear flames as carelessly as the biblical Susanna in her bath. Košťál, in the shadows of his charcoal drawings, explores the melancholic allegory of ash and burnout, where after all the passion, only cooling embers remain, as when anemic dysphoria follows an exhausting sexual act. Havlíčková’s sculptures condense fire into matter (armor), into body (horse), and especially into the womb (Frodit). Let us recall Duchamp’s ready-made work L.H.O.O.Q., "elle a chaud au cul," meaning "she has fire between her legs."

The aesthetic, yet fatalistic, symbol is the principle of mortality permeating the exhibition like the subtle matter of cosmic neutrinos passing through matter. Kolář portrays motifs of attack, abuse, and dehumanization in confrontation with aggression, cynicism, and blasphemous irony on the other side, where death is viewed as a child’s game. Košťál incorporates chimerical illusions of dead figures, particularly deceased actors from the era of black-and-white films, where each image is not only a nostalgic reminiscence but also a spiritual séance. Havlíčková then models unborn eidoses trapped in the sphere of anti-physics, forever buried beneath the liquid sands of time. So close, yet painfully distant from earthly existence.

However, the trio of artists here defeats death through the Promethean fire of their creation, just as the crematory heat in Varanasi frees the immortal spirit from the carnal prison of the body (soma sema). The flame of life will eventually fade, but the flame of art extinguishes nothing – omnia mutantur, nihil interit.

– Kamil Princ

Price list

MONIKA HAVLÍČKOVÁ

Monika embodies Platonic archetypes of the world of ideas in his sculptures, yet reshapes their essence and attributes on the potter’s wheel of his imagination into previously unseen, unsettling forms. Humanity is portrayed as a synthesis of the dimensions of the feminine and masculine principles, whose androgyny and simultaneous reproductive sterility materialize the castration anxiety rooted in Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories. This phobia, however, is lyrical, softened by the anatomical harmony of ancient kalokagathia and graceful ballet poses that intertwine dance and flight. Horses, in turn, represent the emanation of untamed latent energy poised to erupt, while anthropomorphized armor merges the opposites of fullness and emptiness into a new hybrid form.

Madonna (2014)
Material: wax, plaster
Dimensions: 85 x 28 x 24 cm
Price: 80,000 CZK

Autoportrét (1998)
Material: wax, plaster
Dimensions: 40 x 23 x 32 cm
Price: 80,000 CZK

Anděl (2015)
Material: aluminum powder, polyester, pigment
Dimensions: 167 x 83 x 80 cm
Price: 350,000 CZK

Kůň (2006)
Material: polyester, pigment, spray, acrylic
Dimensions: 195 x 167 x 53 cm
Price: 280,000 CZK
Both horses: 520,000 CZK (volume discount)

Baletka (Ballerina) (2008)
Material: wax, polyester
Dimensions: 150 x 100 x 50 cm
Price: 200,000 CZK

Pucek v brnění (2006)
Material: polyester, metal leaf
Dimensions: 130 x 64 x 45 cm
Price: 160,000 CZK

Frodit (2010)
Material: aluminum powder, polyester, gold leaf
Dimensions: 130 x 110 x 125 cm
Price: 380,000 CZK

Martin Kolář

Martin depicts the figures of children immersed in mainstream entertainment, confronting social pathologies and the cult of institutionalized violence. The connection between childish aggression and references to medieval and modern warfare forms an eccentric thematic whole. The primal principles of destructive Thanatos and promiscuous Eros, where the atomic bomb represents a phallic symbol, oscillate like an alternating electric current. Kitsch and decadence, vivid colors and pain, ornamentation and symbolism – Kolář, following in the footsteps of Jacques Derrida, deconstructs reality. Nihilistic content is, however, catalyzed by brutal colorfulness and playful irony with elements of black humor.

Game Over (2024)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 160 x 120 cm
Price: 48,000 CZK

Selfcontrol (2024)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 200 x 180 cm
Price: 60,000 CZK

WAR (2023)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 200 x 200 cm
Price: 62,000 CZK

František miluje svou práci (2024)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 160 x 140 cm
Price: 52,000 CZK

Little Boy (2023)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 80 x 60 cm
Price: 22,000 CZK

Fightclub
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 170 x 130 cm
Price: 48,000 CZK

Roman Košťál

Roman explores themes of death, faded memories, nostalgic sentiment, and existential melancholy. Often employing cinematographic aesthetics, where colorful figures represent the living and black-and-white ones refer to the deceased. His canvases are the stage for shadow plays touching on topics of losing loved ones and searching for universal meaning amidst painful life changes, while also incorporating grotesque elements and a cabaret atmosphere, where tears are merely part of the film script, however bitter they may be. Everything forms a bizarre performance of an absurd drama in the sense of Comenius' "labyrinth of the world," though without the "paradise of the heart," which no longer beats.