2018
recycled metal, h. 4.20 m
On loan from the artist

When we look at trees, we notice the density and colour of their leaves, their size, their distance from other trees; we see their species, their age, the shadows cast by their crowns and how they form the memory of a place. Often, however, trees are planted in places where there are too many of them, where they hide part of a house or, conversely, where they are missing altogether. Some trees, especially in cities, require adequate space for drawing up groundwater during the dry summer months or in other extreme conditions. Most of the time, however, it is enough to regularly care for a grown tree and to lower its centre of gravity during periods of vegetative rest, instead of later being forced by law to cut it down. In fact, many trees have irreversibly disappeared this way instead of being preserved for future generations of people, birds and insects.
Dagmar Šubrtová

Dagmar Šubrtová (born 1973 in Duchcov) lives in Kladno. She studied at the Glass Studio of the Art Institute of Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem from 1993 to 1994. Between 1994 and 2000, she studied sculpture under Kurt Gebauer at the Prague Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, where she then worked as assistant professor from 2003 to She held her first solo exhibition in 1992 and since then has created a series of art installations. She is also active as a curator. In 2002–2010, she ran the Mayrau Gallery at the former Mayrau mine in Vinařice near Kladno, where she regularly created art interventions along the tour route. Between 2000 and 2020, she was the curator of the Makráč Gallery, the exhibition hall of the Czech Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry in Prague’s Petřiny district. In the town of Kladno, she has worked to make the home of artist sisters Květa and Jitka Válová accessible to the public. From 2015 to 2017, she was the chief coordinator of the international Frontiers of Solitude project, which focuses on the transformation of the landscape and on the relationship between post-industrial society and nature. She occasionally collaborates with researchers from the natural sciences and humanities.

Šubrtová’s work is based on the medium of sculpture, which offers her a solid foundation for thinking in three dimensions. At the same time, however, she moves freely between numerous other media such as object art, installation and photography. Her art reflects the environment in which she lives, and she works with the concept of local identity and cultural, historical and social influences. She has a long-term interest in the post-industrial landscape, processes of change and the impact of man, whose activities influence the global system. She observes processes in nature and is fully aware of the constant threats they face.

Šubrtová’s work is currently on display as part of the exhibition Stella Maris in GASK’s Experimental Space (12/12/2020 – 26/9/2021). The exhibition is curated by Adriana Primusová.