Exhibitions by František Skála
11.06.2010 / 10:38
Two exhibitions by a top Czech artist František Skála, entitled Cecil’s Quest and Rock Aid, will be shown in Brussels under the auspices od Ambassador Milena Vicenová.
Cecil’s Quest
The first of these exhibitions will be shown at the Belgian Comic Strip Center (Rue des Sables 20, 1000 Bruxelles) from 23 June until 19 September 2010.
The opening will take place on 22 June 2010 at 6:30 pm.
Rock Aid
The other exhibition will be hosted by the Czech Centre Brussels (Rue du Trone 60, 1050 Bruxelles) from 24 June until 31 August 2010.
The opening will take place on Wednesday 23 June 2010 at 7 pm.
You are kindly invited to both exhibitions and their openings. The exhibitions are organised by the Arbor Vitae Societas in cooperation with the Belgian Comic Strip Center and the Czech Centre Brussels, under the auspices of Ambassador Milena Vicenová, the Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the EU.
František Skála (1956) studied at the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague in the Department of Film and Television Graphics, worked as an animator and illustrator of childrens books. He has also established himself as a sculptor, as a creator of extraordinary objects and installations, and as a performer. He has been awarded many prestigious prizes (Certificate of Honour for Illustration, IBBY, Jindřich Chalupecký Award). In the Czech Pavillion at the 45th Biennial in Venice (1993), he exhibited drawings from his 850 km journey on foot from Prague to Italy, together with fragile sculptures made from objects found along the way. Nearly 100,000 visitors visited the series of his retrospective exhibitions between 2004-2005.
His unique photographic comic book „Cecil’s Quest“ captures the adventurous wanderings of a guy called Cecil on 322 photographs. “The demanding technique of photographing puppets in nature was like making an animated film without any of the comfort of a studio with all its technical conveniences. It was similar to making a regular film except for the fact that I did all the work myself,” Skála said.
The Czech Centre in Brussels hosts Skála’s collection of guitars – artefacts labelled “Rock Aid”. The freer the sculptural approach of forming this symbol of 20th century rock, a sophisticated instrument for noise and youth revolt, the less it is required to satisfy any functional conditions. It is determined by fulfilling the phenomenon of the guitar, in terms of the shape and outer identifying characteristics (the body, neck, head, pickups, and so on), but the material used and the approach, typical for Skála, give the individual instruments the character of unreproducible objects related to many fields, be it the natural morphology of water predators, aerodynamic design of the 1950s, weapons, architecture or historical furniture. The guitars are used in a pantomime where the player can focus completely on the expressive style (a common practice in contemporary pop music).
