Patrik Hábl’s exhibition Eyes Between Mountains is a visual and spiritual confrontation between the monumentality of painting and the intimacy of the female gaze. Hábl accentuates the female face as a universal sign, the face of a pilgrim, a revelation, the bearer of memory, emotion and silence. The eyes of the women emerge from the monochromatic structures as a conscious, silent presence. They do not speak, but they see and persist. The series of female faces has been several years in the making and is composed in one coherent image made up of individual pixels that combine to form a monumental mosaic, grid or network, where each face represents one of the stones of a larger whole. Limited to greys, blacks and graphite tones, the palette is not about absence, but about depth –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ the layers of experience, the erosive effect of memory, space for concentration. In the industrial environment of the Turbine Hall, the canvases spill out into space, becoming landscape, architecture, the painting itself, and in the topography of emotion, views can function as sources and canvases as horizons, but also vice versa. Hábl generously dissolves the boundaries of traditional painting. The space ceases to be merely an exhibition hall; it becomes a painting that we enter. The visitor is part of it, a kind of figure in a landscape of faces whose gaze silently, relentlessly and continuously follows the visitor.

Eva Damborská’s exhibition presents a selection of her lifelong work, whose subtle objects and installations combine delicacy, craft precision and deep female experience. The artist works with fibre as an artistic and existential medium through which she uses the theme of silence, care, memory and the cyclical power of life. She draws inspiration from nature, from the rhythms of growth and decay, from organic structures and forms such as spider webs, nests and cocoons. The installation created for the industrial space of the Turbine Hall in EPO1 contrasts fragile materials and massive architecture. Damborská uses fabric, thread, paper, wire and cellophane, which she layers, embroiders, combines and composes into visual scores of silence and concentration. Her work bears traces of contemplation, care, and meditative repetition, in which there is a quiet power. The exhibition highlights the paradox of threads –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ they are almost invisible, yet hold shape, connect, protect. This delicate medium mirrors the feminine principle, whose resilience comes from empathy, perseverance and the capacity for transformation. Each piece is a unique synthesis of sensitivity and artistic courage. The exhibition encourages the appreciation of subtleties that often remain hidden and reminds us that the quietest can be the strongest.

A poet of absurdity, a bohemian with an Ostrava patina, an artist who has never bowed to the seriousness of the world. Jiří Surůvka is a living legend, the enfant terrible of Czech art, whose work oscillates between Dadaist playfulness, sharp irony and uncompromising criticism of society. The exhibition The Power Plant Boilerman presents a selection of the work of this distinctive personality of the Czech art scene, who stands out for his combination of irony, farce and deep humanism. In the industrial engine room of the EPO1 Centre for Contemporary Art and the adjacent black boxes, the artist plays out a peculiar dialogue between an anti-war message, social criticism and distinctive humour. In addition to the famous piece Fatherhood and recordings of performances by the artist’s alter ego, Batman, the exhibition also presents the series The War Makers, in which Surůvka uses bizarre characters to reveal the absurdity of violence and manipulation. His art, fluctuating between performance, object and new media, reflects the world through a distorted mirror capturing reality all the more accurately.

The theme of underworld characters in the form of poachers, drunks and prostitutes, as well as mythical ferrymen and rulers of the underworld has permeated visual art since time immemorial. Painters, sculptors, poets and writers have always been interested in the fate of people on the edge of society, in the imaginary underworld. The term “underworld”, however, has a double meaning –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and the artist is equally attracted to its representation as a mythological place where souls go after death. 

The exhibition presents works by contemporary artists who elaborate both of these levels of the underworld motif in their specific artistic language. The works on display depict thieves and dealers as well as ferrymen and gods. The wide range of works and the variety of their conceptions confirm that the underworld is not just one motif among many, but a constant source of inspiration.

Exhibiting:

Patrik Adamec, Andrea Baštýřová, Jiří Baštýř, Aleš Brázdil, Andros Foros, Martin Gerboc, Petr Hajdyla, Tomáš Jetela, Alžběta Josefy, Tomáš Kurečka, Filip Kůrka, Martin Mulač, Nikola Emma Ryšavá, Tomáš Roubal, Jan Slanina, Tomáš Skála, Emil Taschka, Jan Uldrych, Annemarie Vardanyan, Jan Vytiska

EPO1 Contemporary Art Centre invites you to the exhibition Fresh Power –⁠ motives and tendencies of the youngest generation of domestic sculpture.

One of the projects of the EPO1 Centre for Contemporary Art is the creation of the Fresh Power collection, which aims to map the work of the youngest generation of sculptors and artists coming out of Czech sculpture schools, graduating in 2018 and later. The title Fresh Power is also the title of the exhibition that forms the basis of this collection. In building the collection, we have avoided a selective approach, and our main concern is to capture not only the work of the artists, but also the diversity of artistic approaches and inspiration, to map a wide range of styles and materials used. We would like to capture the trends that appear in the work of authors from the first half of the 21st century who create their works on the territory of the Czech or Slovak Republic.