http://www.gask.cz/en/exhibitions/vaclav-blaha-strange-pearls-doubt

Curator: Richard Drury

It is impossible to imagine the spectrum of authentic contributions to Czech art of the last forty-five years without the work of Václav Bláha. The diverse forms of his artistic expression, whether in painting, drawing, printmaking or spatial projects, continue to speak to us with their insistent presence.

Since the very beginning of his career in the 1970s, the starting point of Bláha’s expression has been reflection on the human situation through his own personal experiences: in his own words ‘I see life through myself.’ He focuses thematically on the human individual and its struggle both with itself and with ‘higher’ or ‘external’ powers.

The fundamental basis of Bláha’s explorations is expressively conceived space in which the human figure is inextricably linked with everything that surrounds it at the level of personal relationships, history, politics, society and nature. In his work, Bláha doesn’t conceal a sense of (self-)irony and characteristically bases his approach on self-doubt as an inseparable part of one’s path to truly understanding oneself and the world.

Václav Bláha’s exhibition at GASK is a representative survey of his art since the 1970s and features a series of his most recent paintings. It is drawn from a series of loans from private and gallery collections.

GASK