2023 – 2025

steal, wood, 488 x 488 x 1090 cm

Jiří Příhoda (1966, Jihlava) is a leading internationally active contemporary Czech artist who lives in both New Mexico and Prague. In his monumental creations spanning a broad range from architecture to sculptural objects, he explores the laws of perspective, geometric proportions, and the dynamics of light, sound and the moving image. He teaches at Brno University of Technology’s Faculty of Fine Arts, where he has headed the Spatial Design Studio (previously Sculpture Studio 2) since 2024.

The name of his newly installed piece, CARBOL, is a reference to a nearly one-hundred-year-old technique used to protect wooden structures. This “folk” method involves coating wood with used motor oil, a modern material that replaced the cow’s blood originally used to impregnate rural structures such as barns, sheds and fences.

Inspired by a simple wooden shed, CARBOL has been built on the precise foundations of Cartesian geometry, the proportional canons of classical architecture and the physical laws of balance. It is a combination of quarter circles that show a different shape from each side. CARBOL’s dark exterior contrasts with its white interior, which has been divided up by regular openings – gaps that form a sophisticated geometric grid. What is more, these regular light holes transform the inner and outer lighting atmosphere and give the object a sense of dynamism.

One factor that plays a crucial role in the creation of Příhoda’s grand spatial designs is the work’s specific location and its architectural context. Příhoda has deliberately chosen to install his piece on the grassy area of the Jesuit gardens, from where one has a picturesque view of the Gothic jewel that is the Church of St. Barbara. The open part of CARBOL, into which a park bench has been placed, invites visitors to contemplate, rest or reflect. This futuristic observation room reminds us of the important spiritual context of this place, with its historical ties to the European spiritual tradition of art and religious faith. With this contemporary artistic sculpture, Příhoda provides us with a chance to sensitively reflect on our rich cultural heritage or to explore our existence – our here and now – differently and anew.

CARBOL is thus more than a work of sculpture; it is a viewing platform and open structure where visitors can spend inspiring moments refreshing their bodies and souls, in silence or in friendly conversation, in direct connection with the current weather, the time of day and the season. Jiří Příhoda thus shows once again that his work combines the ordinary and the extraordinary.

The installation of Jiří Příhoda’s architectural object in the gallery’s gardens and its inclusion in the ongoing Open-air GASK project is no coincidence. Příhoda is a world-renowned artist and also an important contemporary of artists Veronika Bromová, Markéta Othová and Kateřina Vincourová, whose exhibition Horn of Cape is currently showing at GASK. In their joint exhibitions since the 1990s, all four artists broke out of the traditional limits of the gallery space, an approach nicely summarized by the textual art of contemporary Brno-based street artist Timo and his well-known graffiti-stencil proclamation “Duch jde durch” – loosely translated: the spirit knows no bounds.