AAU Art News: Insight of Inspiration

The opening of art exhibition “Insight of Inspiration” on February 1^st, 2023, curated by AAU student, Klara Mahoas, was off to a smashing start with a performance from Tadeáš Kotrba.

Using a hammer, Kotrba (born 1986) violently broke apart a printed plaster copy of a Renaissance-era fresco by Lorenzo di Pietro featured in the Santa Maria Della Scala in Siena, Italy. Leaving it in clean-cut blocks atop a pile of broken sculpture pieces by Kotrba’s father, Marius Kotrba. The ruins of this violence, which was done in the window-shelf space of the Reunion Gallery, remain a centerpiece of this impressive exhibit.

For Klara Mahoas, “Insight of Inspiration” the drawings and paintings featured are both personal and spiritual. This exhibit includes selected sketches by artist, and father to Tadeáš Kotrba, Marius Kotrba (1959-2011), and many of Kotrba’s own paintings and drawings inspired by the work of his father. Marius Kotrba was a prominent sculptor in Czechoslovakia through the 1980s till his untimely death in 2011.

On the walls, the sketches of Marius Kotrba selected by his son, Tadeáš Kotrba, depict naked angels and devilish creatures with various human and spiritual unions typically with a central nude male figure. The broken Renaissance-era fresco by Lorenzo di Pietro in Santa Maria Della Scala in Siena is positioned besides this line-up. The most eye-catching piece is one angel from the fresco (made between 1445-1449) painted in a former civic hospital dedicated to helping abandoned children, the poor, the sick, and pilgrims – It is with this work that the sketches are tied together. In entering the gallery, the eye is drawn to Tadeáš Kotrba’s untitled 2.50 x 1.75 m painting, which dominates a wall of the gallery space.

Curious to see for yourself?

“Insight of Inspiration” is open until Feb 19th, by appointment only. For visits, contact Klara.Mahoas@aauni.edu.This exhibition was done under the mentorship of Piotr Sikora for the course Curatorial Studies II.