2017

Audience (2017), a sculpture by the conceptual artist and designer Jakub Berdych Karpelis (1971), has been installed in the GASK gardens to commemorate what would have been the ninetieth birthday of the Czech Republic’s first post-1989 president, Václav Havel (1936–2011). Audience invites viewers to sit and engage in a discussion on issues faced by the democratic world and on the values associated with President Havel. The work’s placement in the gallery’s gardens can also be seen as a reference to one of Havel’s best-known plays, The Garden Party (1963).

The work of Jakub Berdych Karpelis (*1971, Prague), a conceptual artist and designer who started out as a stonemason engaged in art restoration and work on film sets, is characterised by a combination of fine and applied art. In 2002 he founded Qubus, the Czech Republic’s first sales gallery for design, which he and Maxim Velčovský have managed to turn into a now-legendary studio and brand. In his fine art practice, he works primarily with traditional materials such as glass, stone and porcelain. His distinctive style blends fine art with design and meticulous craftsmanship with hyperbole, irony and critical social commentary. In 2008 he expanded the Qubus studio’s activities to include the DOX by Qubus gallery design shop, of which he is artistic director. His collection of black blown glass Updated earned him the 2012 EDIDA Elle Decoration Award; his showroom and first Czech design shop Qubus and its sister gallery shop DOX by Qubus are recipients of the Shop of the Year Award from Czech Grand Design (2006, 2008); and Jakub himself has been nominated for numerous awards across multiple categories by Czech Grand Design, Designblok and other organisations. His internationally exhibited portfolio includes distinctly original and stylistically exaggerated functional objects as well as limited editions and one-of-a-kind works of art. Besides conceptual and product design, he also works in the field of interior design and exhibition architecture. He has sold his fine art through the Qubus Design Studio since 2018 and occasionally invites other artists and designers to work with him. His early collections were shown at the Moss Gallery in New York, have been represented by London’s Mint Gallery and can also be found in domestic and foreign collections, including the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, the Moravian Gallery in Brno and the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. Jakub has also designed numerous awards, including the Magnesia Litera literature award. He taught at Prague’s Scholastika art school in 2017–2019 and at the Pilchuck Glass School in 2022.