Tomáš Hlavina

Tomáš Hlavina belongs to the generation of artists that arrived on the Czech art scene during the 1990s. From the very start he was a leading light of this generation and his work was selected for many group exhibitions (e.g. he participated at what was an important exhibition in its day, Trial Operation, at the Mánes Gallery, and also exhibited at Zvon ’94, Biennale of Young Artists at Prague City Library, and at exhibitions of the then leading Prague gallery, MXM).

The starting point of his work can be traced back to several important Czech artists of the 1960s. This is typical of many of his contemporaries, e.g. the Tvrdohlaví group, who did not feel an affinity with their immediate predecessors. It was also the result of the influence of new post-revolutionary professors at the Academy of Fine Arts, the list of whom includes many imposing older names. In Hlavina’s work we can see the influence of Stanislav Kolíbal (and his minimalistic approach) and Milan Knížák, who operates on the principle that there is no everyday item that cannot be part of an artwork. The 1990s generation also rediscovered the charm of Duchamp’s satirical ready-mades, a fact that is very apparent in Hlavina’s work.

However, from the start Hlavina reinterpreted the work of his much older colleagues in a very personal way. And so, for instance, his objects are ready-mades only on first sight. “I don’t make pure ready-mades,” the artist himself says. When we examine his individual objects closely, we find they are composed of many different elements, which may be found or bought. In addition, Hlavina often then goes on to modify them by drilling, polishing, flexing, splitting or painting them. The object loses its original concrete form and the result is a refined artefact that has, for instance, a broom at both ends, with a drilled handle and the title Flute. The titles are important: the fact that they do not relate to the original items from which the object is made creates new meanings.

His objects also lack Duchamp’s sharp social satire. In Hlavina’s work everything is refined, sophisticated and aesthetically cultivated. Another feature of his work is the fact it is not coloured. This results in very minimalistic works that project metaphorical content. This fact distinguishes his work from the classical minimalistic objects of the 1960s (one is reminded of the well known statement by Frank Stella: “What you see is what you see”). Hlavina is a master at putting banal, often very utilitarian, items into new contexts, in which the subjects of reality lose their original meaning and are transposed into new contiguities that became a sensitive, poetic metaphor. Hlavina is a poet who expresses himself in objects rather than verse, a poet of subtle, unobtrusive poetry in which a light humour plays with the everyday world, so aestheticising his references to minimalism, conceptualism and Dadaism.

Solo catalogues:

Tomas Hlavina, Galerie na bidylku, Brno 2007

Tomas Hlavina, East Bohemian Museum of Fine Arts, Pardubice 2005

The Physics / Die Physik, Villa Concordia, Bamberg 2000

Atlas, MXM Gallery, Prague 1996

Model for a System of Questions about Islamic Carpets, MXM Gallery, Prague 1999

Catalogues (selection):

2011

... And Other Objects, Galerie Caesar, Olomouc

Flashbulb Memory, Studio Gallery, Budapest

VI. New Zlín Salon, Zlín Chateau, Zlín

2010

Galerie Die Aktualität des Schönen... 2006-2009, Liberec

CO14 2003-2005, archive of the Czech artists of the 1990s, Prague

And Don't Forget the Flowers, Moravian Gallery, Brno

2009

V prostoru 2000, Generace 1989-2009, contemporary Czech sculptors, Liberec

My Europe Contemporary Czech Art, EESC - European Union, Brussels / DOX Prague

2008

V. New Zlín Salon, Zlín Chateau, Zlín

Gallery Sokolska 26, Ostrava (with Pavel Rudolf)

2006

Allied..., Jelinek Foundation, National Gallery in Prague

Swimming Pool/Art in Real Time, London

2005

Definition, Display Gallery, Prague

Prague Biennale 2, Karlin Hall, Prague

IV. New Zlín Salon, Zlín Chateau, Zlín

2004

Passage d'Europe, Museé d'art Moderne, Saint-Etienne, France

Palais des arts - Observatory, Palais im Großen Garten, Dresden, Germany

2003

The Youngest, Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art of the National Gallery in Prague

Retroperspective, House of the Lords of Kunstat, Brno

2002

Field of Phenomena/ Solitude of Things, Atrium - Moravian Gallery, Brno

BorderLife, RHIZOM Gallery, Graz, Austria

III. New Zlín Salon, Zlín Chateau, Zlín

2001

Finalists of the J.Chalupecky Award, Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art of the National Gallery in Prague

Object / Object, The Czech Museum of Fine Arts, Prague

Model Fictions, Vaclav Spala Gallery, Prague

2000

Finalists of the J.Chalupecky Award, Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art of the National Gallery in Prague

The End of the World ? National Gallery - Kinsky Palace, Prague

City Gallery Villa Dessauer, Bamberg, Germany

1999

Finalists of the J.Chalupecky Award, Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art of the National Gallery in Prague

Aspects - Positions. 50 Years of Central European Art 1949 - 1999, Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation Vienna

Brother to Brother, V.Löffler's Museum, Kosice, Slovakia

II. New Zlín Salon, Zlín Chateau, Zlín

1998

Reduced Budget, Manes, Prague

1997

Quiet Messages, Budapest Galéria, Budapest, Hungary

Near the Beginning, Plasy Monastery

1996

Proposte Scambio, Galleria di San Filippo, Torino, Italy

Abstract/Real, Museum Moderner Kunst, 20er Haus, Vienna

First New Zlín Salon, Zlín Chateau, Zlín

1995

Kosmos Topos, Gallery of Malostranska Beseda, Prague

1994

Zvon 94 - Biennial of Young Art, City Gallery Prague - Stone Bell House, Prague

Elsewhere and in Time, Museum of Arts, Náchod

1993

Hermit II, Plasy Monastery

Second Exit, Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany

1992

Objects Installations, Museum of Arts, Zilina, Slovakia

Hermit, Plasy Monastery

1991

Artparty, Plufabrieken, Nijmegen, Holland

1990

Sommer Atelier, Messe Hannover, Germany

Articles and Texts (selection):

Hana Petlachova, art theorist, curator

Text from the catalogue Tools, 2007

Pavel Netopil, curator, art theorist

Interview for the Art&Antiques magazine (Czech), 2006

Tia Blassingame, architecture editor for New York Arts Magazine

Interview at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, USA, 2004

Marek Pokorny, Director of the Moravian Gallery in Brno

Part of the text from the catalogue Retroperspective, 2003

Milan Knizak, General Director of the National Gallery in Prague

Text from the catalogue Borderlife, Austria, 2002

Text from the catalogue Proposte Scambio, Torino, Italy, 1996

Jana Sevcikova, Profesor of Art History and Jiri Sevcik, Director of the Research Centre at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Part of the text from the catalogue Cze(h)ndes üzenetek, Quiet Messages, 1997

Kamil Nabelek, philosopher, aesthetician, Academy of Arts Architecture and Design in Prague. Model for a System of Questions about Islamic Carpets, 1994