About the project
CZEN
Artlist — Center for Contemporary Arts Prague

Michal Sedlák

First Name
Michal
Surname
Sedlák
Born
1971
Birth place
Prague
Place of work
Prague
Keywords
CSU Library
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About artist

At present Michal Sedlák is mainly involved in creating land-art projects, an artistic form which develops the ideas of conceptual artists from the middle of the sixties. Though the relationship of these works to those of Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, Richard Long, Hamish Fulton and others is undeniable, Sedlák’s approach to this medium is temperamentally different. It is as though Sedlák has brought the old tradition of the artistic formation of the landscape and natural formations from its conceptual episode back to the womb of creative art, fantastic invention and exciting fabulation.

 

Amongst his works we find drawings of large and technically demanding visions, such as the modification of the site of the former monument to Stalin in Prague, including the building of a restaurant and an extensive sculptural creation made from vegetation, or a design for the transformation of the mined hill in České Středohoří into the form of an egg in a frying pan – a “bovine eye”. As well as these there is a host of projects for works of smaller dimensions, the realisation of which is completely possible as has already been shown in two cases.

 

Sedlák’s creative approach could be characterised as a sensitivity for the living surface of the earth and for the stories which populate it. His landscapes are an attempt to add elements of pleasure, game, fantasy, stories and the sensitive updating of a broad cultural context to the functional formation of a landscape.

 

As well as landscape projects Sedlák has created installations for public urban premises, works woven from twigs, and we also find woven tapestry in the list of his works.

 

In 1997 Sedlák created two projects for the exhibition “The Work of Art in Public Space”. Floater involved a thirty-metre long human figure with outstretched arms lying flat in a shallow stream of the Vltava rapids in Troja, Prague. The sculpture, which was to be been made out of stone and live vegetation, was presented by a convincingly detailed model immersed in flowing water. The second project took the form of an artificial island – mountains inside which an Archimedean screw was concealed driven by a stream of water and moving a ball to the top.

 

Sedlák’s work differs from the modest, sensitive works of Long or Fulton. It consists of a conceptual realisation of the viewer’s experience which has a “revolutionary” character, i.e. it opens a new model of the relationship of the subject to the world as such. As opposed to the conceptual works of Land Art and Earth Art the contents of Sedlák’s works move around the surface of the world and the surface of human experience. They recount stories, by which they make a connection to the cultural heritage and address current themes of contemporary discourse regarding questions relating to environmental protection and the aesthetic values of the landscape.

Author of the annotation
Ludvík Hlaváček

Published
2007

CV

Studies:

1991-1997 Vysoká škola uměleckoprůmyslová v Praze

1990-1991 nástavbové studium na Střední odborné škole výtvarné v Praze

1986-1990 Střední uměleckoprůmyslová škola v Praze

 

Awards:

1997 2. cena, Neratovice - Oživení města

1. cena diváka - Umělecké dílo ve veřejném prostoru, Sorosovo centrum pro současné umění, Praha

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions
2010
Ne-možnosti - galerie Makráč

2007
Fotocesty – Galerie na chodbě, Univerzita Jana Evangelisty Purkyně v Ústí nad Labem

2000
galerie U bílého jednorožce v Klatovech

1998
Ústav makromolekulární chemie v Praze - Iluze - kresby
Group exhibitions not included in ARTLIST.
Rok 2014
Zóna v pohybu. Galerie Dox ,Praha
Rekonstrukce. Galerie Emila Filly v Ústí nad Labem

Rok 2012
My place. Galerie Trafačka

Rok 2011
Současná česká krajina. Galerie moderního umění v Hradci Králové
2010
Účast na uměleckém sympoziu Městský park 2010 vedeném Lenkou Klodovou PhD. - projekt Českobrodské plavení

2006
Výstava ke stopadesátému výročí narození Sigmunda Freuda, Staroměstská radnice v Praze

2005
Od země přes kopec do nebe – Severočeská galerie výtvarného umění v Litoměřicích
Nový zlínský salon

2002
Galerie U bílého jednorožce v Klatovech – Divočina
Galerie V. Fragnera v Praze – CIB

2001
Galerie v Bílině

1999
Stadt Theater Selb - Německo

1998
Galerie Václava Špály v Praze - Umění pro nemocnici
Galerie Akademie výtvarných umění v Praze - Zelená
Public art, Praha - 2. výroční skupinová výstava Nadace pro současné
umění, Praha

1997
Sorosovo centrum pro současné umění, Praha – Umělecké dílo ve veřejném prostoru / Artwork in Public Spaces - Národní galerie moderního umění v Praze - Veletržní palác - oceněn 1. Cenou diváka
Kulturní dům Neratovice - Oživení města

1995
Galerie Václava Špály - Nová jména
Galerie Půda - školní ateliérová výstava
Staroměstská radnice v Praze - Sál architektů - symposium na téma papír - Paper Mill

1994
Galerie Sýpka

1992
Vojanovy sady
Other realisations

2013 - 2014 The Ship project in Sladovka in Benešov 

 

2013

Sculpture Symposium in Benešov

 

2000

Danae project - in the Královská obora in Prague (within the project of six projects realized by the Center for Contemporary Art - Prague).

Photo

Center for Contemporary Arts Prague www.fcca.cz 2006–2024
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