Pavel Ryška

Belongs to the Brno circle of artists, even if he originally hails from Třebíč, where in the mid-1990s, just prior to his studies at the School of Creative Arts (FaVU), he created his first works. It was a series of armchairs in the open landscape; for example, the Whitewashed Aluminium Chair / Hliněné křeslo obílené vápnem (1994). The whitewash dissolved in the autumn rain. Or he also made the Woven Willow Chair / Křeslo z vrbového proutí (1996). This one took root in the wetlands just beyond the village of Šašovice, where the artist lived at the time. Ryška’s early works are typified by a mystical intervention in the surrounding environment joined with events and by their metamorphosis as part of a precise concept. In 1997 he paraphrased „life-saving“ activities, when as part of the Weeds /Plevel project he marked dozens of Cow Parsnip plants with grandiose tags featuring the text „Plants Hunted by the State.“ Thereafter he manufactured, based on the standard model for seed bags used by the company, SEMO, further sacks for the aggressive weed variety, Cow Parsnip. He smuggled these bags of seed into garden supply stores. In his subsequent project Easter Eggs (Happy Easter)/Kraslice (Veselé velikonoce)- (1996) he comically touched upon a sensitive social topic. He transformed poppy heads in that on each one, using industrial latex, he drew fake traces of running, raw opium juice. In further projects in nature, such as Deer-stand – Public Library / Posed – Veřejná knihovna (1997), he used a number of dear-stands around the village of Šašovice to change the area into a comfortable reading room. These were a suggestive probe into real life and the world of art.

At the end of the 1990s Ryška began to work with computers. Digitally-manipulated images began to emerge along with installations like GOTTA CATCH ‘EM All (2002) or Death Valley (2003). This shift from events and interventions into his surroundings to computer comic visuals gives the impression of a fundamental watershed in Ryška’s creative works. The artist begins to create virtual, often animated, stories, which continue however to maintain a conceptual approach typical for Ryška, subversive humour. This appears as well in his next series, Thoughts of Modern Painters / Myšlenky moderních malířů (2004). In this cycle he addresses the history of modernism in a novel way so that he could parody fundamental artistic works of the 20th century. His short, animated film, Ursonáta (2004) plays a little with the legacy of Dadaism. Despite their limited conceptualism and wild post-modern mix of high and low (art), even these Ryška works have their own irreplaceable poetic visuality.

2005

Jiří Ptáček: Fotografie ze sbírky Dr. Weisse

2003

Jiří Ptáček: Hvězda a brána šedého hradu: Velký Participant, Umělec 2/2003

2004

Horké místo a osud na okraji. Mezinárodní projekt v Brně, Art & Antiques, 4/2004

Tomáš Pospiszyl: Prasonáta budoucnosti, Záhada čínského pokoje (katalog), Mor. Galerie Brno

Marek Pokorný: Vrakoviště, Je slovní fotbal na všechny slabiky karaoke? (katalog)

Jiří Ptáček: Čínský čaj si dáváme o páté, Záhada čínského pokoje (katalog), MG Brno

Pavlína Morganová: Insiders (katalog), Dům umění Brno

Klára Kubíčková: Houbaři do galerie nechodí, interview P.R., Praesens 4/2004

Petr Ingerle: Záhada čínského pokoje

Jiří Maška: Záhada čínského pokoje

2002

Jiří Ptáček: Prolhaný Pokémon, Ateliér 6/2002

2000

František Kowolowski: Pavel Ryška, II. ZSM (katalog), Zlín

1999

Pavlína Morganová: Akční umění, Votobia, Olomouc