Kokolia Moca Chengdu 2013

8/13/2019 Kokolia Moca Chengdu 2013

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Vladimr

Kokolia


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with generous support from:


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organizer /:

Museum of Contemporary Art ChengduWest C1, Tianfu Software Park, Tianfu Avenue, High-Tech Zone, ChengduTel: 0086-28-85980055

C1

0086-28-85980055

curators/:

L Peng and Miroslav Ambroz

co-organized by /:

Embassy of the Czech Republic in China

Looking to the Crown of a Tree

28.9.2013 - 27.10.2013

Visual Penetration

21.9.2013 - 21.10.2013

organizer /:

Embassy of the Czech Republic in China2 Ritan Lu, Jianguomenwai,100600 Bejing

2

100600

curator/:

Miroslav Ambroz


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table of contents:

Vladimr Kokolia on Chinas doorstep Libor Seka. 7

9

Vladimr Kokolia: Super - cycle L Peng 11 Vladimr Kokolia: 13

The exposed gazing of Vladimr Kokolia Miroslav Ambroz 15

21

One artist Vladimr Kokolia 29

31

Glossary Vladimr Kokolia 33

37

Looking to the crown of a tree Vladimr Kokolia 45

47

Drawings from the big cycle 49

Prints from the big cycle

85

Paintings 111

Watercolors and drawings 195

Objects 213

Camera obscura photographs 227

List of illustrations 230

Vladimr Kokolia / resume 235


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6 photo: Libor Seka


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It took some time to convince Vladimr Kokolia to travel to China and address the country through his art. Even though he has al ready beenoriented to its culture, civilization and spirituality for a long time intuitively and consciously he was not certain whether it was the right

moment. Behind his hesitation lurked a number of reasons and inner emotions. I was intrigued by one argument the feeling that he did notwant to/could not come to China right now because he suspected that he would not return home. He senses that he would stay in China,that he would connect with it, integrate into it. I thought about this notion, but, guided by my ever-present doubts, I also considered that hismotivations could be quite the opposite. That perhaps behind it all simply lies the fear of losing some carefully nurtured illusions, the fear ofa dream evaporating, of not nding what he is searching for. A step forward that could mean a step backward. I mulled over the situationand at the same time I tried to get to know and to better understand Vladimr and his world. I came to the conclusion that Vladimr Kokoliaand China belong together.

This assertion is based not only on concerns and attitudes that are shared by both sides, but also on plenty of diverse elements and stancesthat multiply the mutual attraction. Vladimr Kokolia has entered into the boundlessness (wu ji) of the Chinese philosophical stream, he hasfound balance with nature, become part of it and allowed it to permeate him freely. Nature has become for him, just as it has for Chinese

schools of painting, one of the greatest sources of inspiration. It provides as much mystery and thrill as it does the joy of discovery, thusknowledge itself. It creates systems that are in perpetual transformation. It continually presents new questions which Kokolia does not wishto leave unanswered. He wants to grasp it, embrace it, see it from all angles, penetrate it. He wants to discuss it and the paths that leadto its approach. All of the recent meetings with Chinese painters at the Kokolias home in the Czech village of Veversk Knnice or in theirverdent garden focused at least in part on nature.

Kokolia nds in nature a haven; he does not seek in it a refuge. He does not play a game of masks. On the contrary, he appears asa vulnerable gure, exposed. Naturalness for him is directness. He is a lone surfer riding against a tidal wave of commercialization,factionalism, ambivalence. Against a wave that is barrelling through the world, todays China not excluded. He rejects bombast andinanity. He toils alone on a Sisyphean path to seek the sense of art, and he can not stand aside. He shows the way, writes the book ofhis signposts. Not unlike Don Quixote, he raises his lance against windmills. Ridiculed, he stands in the rain, yet he defends his truth. Theworld needs quiet heroes. Vladimr Kokolia now comes to China. Nay, Vladimr Kokolia returns to China. He has never broken free fromits embrace

Beijing, 11 September 2013

Vladimr Kokolia on Chinas doorstep

Libor Seka


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Veversk Knnice

2013911


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Before Kokolia, Czech modern ar t already has a continuous long his tory in Abstract Expressionism, among which F. Kupka (18711957)became one of the most important representative. Even though he was not as productive as his contemporary Wassily Kandinsky

(18661944), they both focused on exploring the musicality in painting and became the pioneering interpreters for modern art. The verydifferent diversied styles have been compressed into Planarity by Greenberg, which to a certain extent result in the later generationsmisinterpretation on abstract art.

Kokolias art refuses to obey the principle of Planarity; in the meanwhile, he has been paying unremitting efforts in creatinga kind of plane art. It is not a coincidence that in the eighties, Kokolia was recognized as a cult drawer for hundreds of hissarcastic drawings of the Big Cycle. As for the underlying influence of Eastern Orthodoxy, Czech art has a unique understandingtowards graphic imaging taboo. In history, the development of this issue has gone through several ups and downs, but 787Council of Nicaea finally announced that the abolishment of worshipping icon was a heresy, and after the announcement, theicon-worshipping and graphic imaging taboo reached a wonderful harmonious balance. Symbolic and unrealistic art visualizedthe mystery through lines and colors, and this means to achieve incarnation through the special elements of painting. This

motivation is completely different from the historical vision of Greenberg, and thus exposed the gulf between Postmodernism andModernism.In the nineties, Kokolia imbedded the contents of meditation, physical gesture and metaphysics into his motifsthis is anexemplification that he pushes the avant-garde character of abstract painting into a new level. In Kokolias works, avant-garde artno longer means the opposite of kitsch art, but neither means it has saved the kitsch art in real sense. This is exactly the pursuit ofthe definition of avant-garde art from painter douard Manet ( 18321883) to critic Clement Greenberg (19091994): Manetliberalized the depth-of-field, lightening and color in classical art, in one word, the forms of painting successfully overwhelmedthe position of motif which to Manet is only an illusion that needs to be discarded. So the Impressionism naturally made use of thiscreation and created a pure formthe pure painting in compare with Kandinsky puree music. Greenberg believes that it is thispure form gives the definition to the avant-garde character of painting, and being avant-garde means to explain and introspecton oneself through personal characteristics. Based on this clue, he inevitably took the planarity as the ultimate principle of thisartistic activity, as if the fundamental dif ference between painting and other forms of art such as drama, sculpture and music liesin its planarity.

Here, Greenberg seems to fall into some sort of circular denition, we need to rst of all clearly dene the meaning of avant-garderather than rule out some ar t that has been classied into kitsch art and then dene the opposite as avant-garde. Ever since Pop Art,this belief has been challenged from all aspects, but Kokolia challenges Greenberg even further than Pop Art has ever done. Thereason he is able to do this lies in the fact that his works belongs to neither the political art nor capitalisms cultural products, both ofwhich Greenberg goes against. In a sense, meditation is universal, and it does not belong to any partial cycle. So, if Kokolia doesnot belong to kitsch art and neither to its opposite (pure form), then what is Kokolia?

Undoubtedly, Kokolias works have deeply immersed with cu lture, symbol and psychology. His abstractionism can even be considered

as the resolve of purit y. The viewer can not shake off the heavy burden they fel t when watching his works, because Kokolias works

Vladimr Kokolia: Super - cycle

L Peng ()


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seem to be always referring somethingjust like scriptures that are chanting profound meanings. He doesnt have the tranquil andsweet style. On the contrary, he turns art into an artistic penance. Kokolias artistic discourse contains double irony for both planeand spatial depth. It is anti-plane as well as anti-space, and therefore makes people feel a strong sense of dizziness.

The purpose of all this is not to lead us into any sor t of avant-garde or noble ar t style, and qu ite the opposite, Kokolia wants to drawthe audience into a sudden storm of dizziness when facing the plane painting. This dizziness will bring us to a place beyond thegeneral cycle, and make us see i t from a bird view so that we can access to an unprecedented panorama. His works such as Grass(2001, oil on canvas, 100 x 115 cm) have presented us an ambiguous psychological impression, but it is nothing like symbolic,

political or any of our familiar things. Its structure is quite similar to a recite and chanted scripture which is composed of simpleand precise, largely repeated but with diversied interpretations text. In a sense, this structure symbolizes Gods grammar, or GodHimself, not only because it implies the existence of the mysterious logic, but also because we become one of its viewers, and in thisview we feel dizziness. Ash (2013, oil on canvas, 162 x 146 cm) almost makes people associate it with a fractal structure, just asthe fractal structure contains mathematical equations for interpreting the world, the ar tist paid a great effort in integrating the cultu raleld through the form of painting, rather than exclude them through absolute form.

In Kokolias small scratch drawings, we are able to reach the very depth of the ar tists psychology. In these prints, we see ubiquitouswandering gures that are facing chaos. Those gures who have been trapped in the chaos revealed an important objectiveof Kokolias works: that is to bring the audience to face the chaos itself. He takes us into a brand new abstract expressionism,completely different from the dualistic art world assumed by Greenberg. This is a time-consuming battle: Pop Art is just facing the

world of consumerism, and its task is to nd a way to adapt to it. The Postmodern Art has become more accustomed to the resolveof all things, it is hard to imagine that an original comprehensive understanding (which requires Zen-style complete comprehension)to become the motivation of modern art again.

The fact that Koklia is also a mater in teaching Chen-style Taiqi is out of our expectations but makes sense. This kind of self-culti vationthrough eastern doctrine makes him closer to his goal: practicing to face the chaos. Just like Leonardo da Vinci once discussed thepractice on how to face death, the practice on how to face chaos has become Kokolias cultural identity. His art a lso vaguely revealsa secret: this rich illusionary form of chaos seems to be inspired by the ying buttresses of the church and the shape of vault, justlike the example we see in Crowd (2008, oil on canvas). In the painting Vault (2009, oil on canvas, 350 x 310 cm, Mechelen,Belgium, project of MUHKA, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen), the art works were exhibited directly under the vault,which fully demonstrated the association between the two objects and the artists pursuit of transcendence. These wonderful

correspondences echoing between them makes us feel an unexpected sense of mysterious joy; it connects the clumsy reality in a lightsomeway, even if all of the appearances in contemporary are still deeply divided.

It is very difcult to classify Vladimr Kokolia into any type of well-dened abstract expressionism, in a sense, he continues Kupkasartistic experimentation and profoundly inherited previous Czech cultural and historical context. The works of Kokolia is intertwinedwith numerous elements such as profound cultural, history, and psychology, and these elements were uninterruptedly churned in theartists abstract form. It is pure, and in the meanwhile, it becomes the viewers most confusing puzzle. Kokolia shall be regarded asa brand new branch in the abstract art, for his successful integration of East and West, ancient and contemporary, old and new,motifs and form, space and plane, emptiness and universal. He shall be considered as a part of a new vision, which started fromManet and followed by Kupka, Kandinsky, Pollock (1912 1956), as well as an integration and overcome of the ar t production withconsumer societys political sense which represented by Andy Warhol (19281987). For todays Chinese contemporary artists,

Kokolia provides an excellent manifestation imbedded with global art history.


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KokoliaFrantisek Kupka, 1871 ~ 1957Wassily Kandinsky,1866 ~ 1944

KokoliaKokolia1980787

1990KokoliaKokoliaEdouard Manet, 1832 ~1883Clement Greenberg, 1909 ~ 1994

KokoliaKokoliaKokolia

KokoliaKokoliaKokolia

KokoliaGrass, 2001, oil on canvas, 100 x 115 cmAsh, 2013, oil on canvas, 162 x 146 cm

Vladimr Kokolia:


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KokoliaKokolia

KokoliaKokolia

Crowd, 2008, oil on can-vasVault, 2009, oil on canvas 350 x 310 cm, Mechelen, Belgium projectof MUHKA, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen

KokoliaKokoliaKokoliaJackson Pollock, 1912 ~ 1956Andy Warhol,

1928 ~ 1987Kokolia


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Vladimr Kokolia is among the most important and successful artists in the Czech Republic. In 1990 he became the rst laureate of theJindich Chalupeck Award, the most prestigious prize for artists under 35 years of age. Since then he has had more than 80 solo

exhibitions in the top galleries and participated in around 300 group exhibitions. His paintings are represented in Czech and internationalcollections. Even though he considers himself to be primarily a painter, notice has also been taken of his various other activities: from soilcomposting, to writing essays and reviews, which he usually publishes on his blog, to holding lectures, public discussions, workshops andperformances. For several years he performed with the alternative rock group E as a vocalist and songwriter. A professor and vice-president at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Kokolia also has a family and maintains the family homestead in a village 200 km fromhis workplace. He has published several books, and in the past year a documentary feature lm was made about him.

Kokolia creates in a kind of seeming chaos, making his own frames, on which he then stretches the canvas himself, in the courtyard orbarn, not really having a studio per se. Searching for and nding complex intellectual or mystical meaning in his works is intrinsic for him,even though he denies this. He can be simultaneously introverted and extroverted, introspective in private and then stepping out intothe public arena when the need arises including in literary form: For example, in his recently published book Jen (Is-ing) he impartshis multi-layered views on a range of issues, most of them far removed from art-making and the art world. Kokolia reveals things abouthimself which people normally do not talk about, and in doing so he is candid and funny. From his texts, just as from his canvases, it isclear that he looks at the world from a completely different perspective than most other people.

His images are unsettling in their ambiguity. His large-scale canvases act like visual meshes in which our eye moves along trajectories whichare not intrinsic to our own experience. Two such pictures exhibited on opposite walls may cause us to become lost in their labyrinth. Thepainter does not create a representation as an illusion or an imitation of a thing, but as a kind of structure, a framework, which calls uponthe viewer for a greater degree of concentration and engagement. The longer we look at them, the more ways we nd to read them.Heightened attention and effort may paradoxically cause the totally opposite effect we carefully examine the traces of the brush, thecoloured stains on the canvas, but the picture then recedes from us and we do not see it, do not discover it. Kokolia wants to teach us to seethrough his eyes, and we can achieve this if we are willing to cast aside rigid formulas and allow our own existing worldview to collapsefor a while. The result may be that the image appears before us, surprisingly and unexpectedly a phenomenon that could be calledwonderment a term which he himself likes to use. His paintings are like living organisms with their own inner logic, open systems whichare interrelated.

Vladimr Kokolia was born in the former Czechoslovakia in 1956. The era during which he grew up can be characterized as the transitionbetween the communist regimes hardline Stalinist phase to the brief period of political and cultural liberalization that later became knownas the Prague Spring. After years of isolation from the cultural tradition of the Western world, there was a rush to open the door towardsmutual awareness. In August 1968, Soviet tanks put an end to this process of renewal, and the country was plunged into isolation foranother 21 years. The 1970s was a tiresome, psychically depressing period, with a number of meaningless strategic plans which led toa kind of Kafkaesque dichotomy. Most people kept their heads down and followed a recipe for survival: In public it was necessary tofeign enthusiastic support for the ruling regime, then in private one experienced feelings of frustration and hopelessness. Maintaining a loyalpublic face became the norm, which the middle and older generations justied as an existential necessity. For the younger generation

and students, the meaning of such a li fe was regularly questioned in waves of innocent revolt (music, long hair, manner of dress). The most

The exposed gazing of Vladimr Kokolia

Miroslav Ambroz


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serious by-product was isolation: not just the inability to travel and to study European or global cultural heritage but also the related lackof information about cultural happenings elsewhere in the world. Many artists, writers and musicians found refuge in an unofcial secondculture writing for the drawer, books circulated in typewritten samizdat transcripts, theatre performances and art exhibitions in privatehomes. In 1989 the cup of bitterness overowed, and a wave of student protests ended the absurd hegemony of the puppet government.

After his studies at a secondary school of applied arts, Vladimr Kokolia was accepted at the Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1981.His own creative stance was not shaped by the artistic trends of his contemporaries but relied on the study of classical styles and a searchfor his own form of expression. During this period he created a series of paintings on the theme of public transport. They show passengers

hanging onto straps in trams, crammed into overcrowded trains, and being transported from somewhere to somewhere. Figures doze in thedarkened interior of a workers bus or are lined up like puppets as they descend by escalator into the depths of a tunnel. A crowd of peoplepushing through a corridor of a railway station is depicted from a birds-eye view, so we see only a concentrated cluster of heads. Humanbehaviour is synchronized by monotony and routine. The paintings have a bleak colour palette, and Kokolia uses unusual perspectivesthat give them a dynamic atmosphere. The dismal state of society in the early 1980s was a lively breeding ground for him and led to anextensive cycle of drawings, which he worked on between 1983 and 1986.1

The Big Cycle, consisting of hundreds of ink drawings on paper , originated as an intermezzo during a respite from painting (or a crisis)and was in its time a revelation. In brilliant shorthand, Kokolia reduces the individual to the role of worm, preposterously standing up tofate and struggling for his own existence. Figures perform some monotonous and formulaic function, as if according to some stencil. Theynd themselves in impossible and inextricable situations. Their strenuous efforts to disentangle themselves are an expression of pure (often

comic) futility: I am fascinated by the gulf between the utter matter-of-factness with which we accept our daily routines and the obvioussenselessness of it all, Vladimr Kokolia says about his inspiration for the cycle. The drawings immediately took on a dimension of politicalcommentary, because they exposed societys need for a formulation of the uncertainty of the situation, to reveal the absurdity with which noone knew how to cope. Simultaneously with making the drawings he transferred the motifs to prints, mostly linocuts - a medium well suitedto the immediacy and raw expressive power of the imagery. Kokolia discovered new expressive possibilities and tried out various technicalinterventions or processes while printing. The technique itself had still another dimension: Linoleum was something easily and commonlyavailable (it was used everywhere as oor covering), but because it was also a method with which printed matter could be duplicated, thestate tried anxiously to keep it under control.

In 1984 he became part of the alternative rock group E, for which he also wrote short, vivid and semantically charged lyrics. The trio(guitar, bass guitar and vocals) quickly became legendary. Their concerts had a close-knit and magically captivating atmosphere, thanks

also to Kokolia, who performed as a singer wearing a silver band across his eyes (to mask his innate shyness). The band released thealbums E Live (1990) and I Adore Nothing (1994).

Still in communist Czechoslovakia in the mid-1980s, he came to taiji through a partial coincidence. A few years later , while he was tryingto exercise according to some antiquated books, during his residency in the United States he met the teacher Gene Chen, and after Chensdeath he became the disciple of the Master Zhu Tiancai, one of the most famous representatives of the Chen style taijiquan. In the 1990she even taught taiji to the public. In his own words, the practice adjusted his movement patterns, not only during painting and concertperformances, but also in daily life, as he had to learn to walk and analyse gravity again. 2

In the second half of the 1980s, after a short pause, he returned to painting as his main expressive medium and created a series of paintingswhich immediately established him as the most outstanding gure of the upcoming generation. Initially he transposed gural motifs derivedfrom his cycle of drawings, but he did not nd their narrative quality satisfactory in that medium. What could be expressed in a single linewas not transferable to painting. He employed a mechanism that he had discovered while making the series of drawings and prints: the


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linkage of motifs. Through repetition and multiplication, the effectiveness of the message is amplied. Through mirroring, combining of twoor more perspectives, propagation and looping of a motif, Kokolia creates a multi-planed spatial structure a matrix, expanding innitely inall directions. There is no end and no beginning. The size of the canvas thus stops being a limitation, because it is no longer the nal frontier;it only contains a sample of the whole, which can continue freely beyond its periphery. Although individual motifs may be based on quitemundane subject matter (opening doors or mice running through a eld), these events are transformed into an abstract structure relatingnot only to phenomenal reality but also to other levels of meaning with universal relevance. This manner of expression is no longer basedon singularity and temporality, but on the principle of innity. One does not encounter just a segment of reality or a particular momentin time, as in the drawings, but falls straight into the world of timelessness and the eternally recurring circle of life. 3

His work from the late 1980s is distinctive for its application of ornamental structures. He also continued to develop the motif of the humangure, which, however, he rid of any narrative context or meaning. Investigation into the process and conventions of seeing in relation toones immediate surroundings led to experiments in observing gures from uncustomary perspectives (the paintings A Head From Inside,1986, Nude With Four Breasts, 1989). From this developed the whole of Kokolias later objective: to express through the traditionalmedium of painting the perception of realit y in a totally nontraditional way, liberated from convention. With similar passion he painted, forexample, empty space, light, steam and other transient and intangible matter.

In 1989, the Velvet Revolution ended two decades of the totalitarian regimes period of normalization and led to the opening of theborders, which until that time had been hermetically sealed. Dramatic changes in society ushered in, among other things, the emergence ofindependent galleries, and President Vclav Havel initiated an award for young artists named after the prominent art theoretician Jindich

Chalupeck, which was won by Kokolia. As part of the prize he received a three-month residency at the Headlands Center for the Ar ts inCalifornia, and he extended his stay in the Bay Area another three months. Two years later he was the only Czechoslovak artist representedin the prestigious Documenta exhibition in Kassel, Germany.

Shortly after his return from the USA in 1992, he became the head of the Graphics Studio II (studio of experimental printmaking) atthe Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. In his more than two decades of teaching, he has fostered quite a number of remarkable talents. Hismethods of working with students are rather nonstandard, often using paradoxical or subliminal impulses that can steer a susceptible studenttowards independent expression. Gaining experience is given priority over a mere gathering of information. To facilitate communication withstudents, he even published the Gr2 Glossary, which explains concepts he commonly uses.

.......

In the world of contemporary painting, there are not many artists who deal systematically with perception. Usually people dont eventhink about seeing, considering it to be something completely automatic, a purely physiological function. In fact, it is an extraordinarilycomplex process which encompasses not only the phase of seeing but above all the subsequent sorting and processing of information.The organization of perceptions is also subject to projections and visual anticipations to readiness. We are limited by what we alreadyknow; the eye notices primarily objects and shapes for which a label exists. Simply put, seeing is the chronic tendency to perceive theworld as an image. To look as if for the rst time, with an innocent eye 4, was dreamed of a hundred years ago by Paul Czanne,considered to be the father of modern painting.

Kokolia wants to go even further, however. Conscious of the fact that everything originates in the mind, he wants to also see the seeing the whole process of the loss of innocence and to move somewhere between untrained looking and subjective seeing encumberedwith all of its clichs. The process of seeing was the theme of his inaugural lecture at the Academy of Fine Ar ts, in which he called attentionto a generally neglected category of perception: staring into space which is considered to be the opposite of focused attention.


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During astonished looking or wonderment, something of the observed phenomenon ows into us, as if carried by a current, without itnecessarily having been previously named or verbalized. I have the distinct impression that just such empty looking is the default settingfor our vision. It is the most fundamental state, the container, the womb, the landscape, the pilot frequency, the Tao of looking, only onaccount of which individual forms arise,5says Kokolia.

Looking at the world is inextricably linked with the ability to look at paintings. To read a picture means to mobilize our memory andexperience, to test out all alternatives and associations and to decode them. The viewer and the picture are in a mutual relationship inwhich the observer completes the meaning, the story, and where misinterpretation, lack of appreciation or misunderstanding have the same

signicance as understanding. Kokolia obsessively fears that communication between paintings and the audience is inadequate and thattheir accessibility also involves enlightenment of the viewer. He tirelessly discusses this at exhibitions, at workshops, and through socialnetworks. During his exhibitions he paints right in front of the audience in the rooms of the gallery. In the interest of communication, he alsosometimes dips into popular or discredited forms. For his largest exhibition, at the Brno House of Arts, he took out satirical ads in thenewspaper: A unique opportunity for positive vibrations directly from the source! Progressive work with a subtle energy instantaneoustransmission of knowledge to select visitors a wise response to every question within 15 minutes. In this exhibition, which he conceivedas a close-out sales event, he presented hundreds of works and for the two months of the exhibition he lived, cooked, engaged in discussionand worked directly in the gallery.

Through periodic questioning of certainties, he has in a way demonstrably shown that the only thing certain is uncertainty. It is typicalof him that no sooner has he adopted a particular position, has managed to precisely articulate his vision, he moves beyond it, because

everything must be said once again, but differently. Kokolia essentially cogitates by means of opposing views and reexively resistsany denitions. He oscillates between complementary poles, from an emphasis on the importance of individual manual contact withthe art work to computer-generated printing, from a noncommercial, introverted artist to holding a commercial re-sale of his studio,from solitary composting in his garden to making ofcial appearances in the media. He has no problem with being self-deprecating because even that can be a strategy to prevent mannerism, stagnation, or clinging to the same themes. He intuitively avoids getting intoa situation where he would just mechanically repeat himself which is indeed the most insidious malignant disease commonly infectingartists who were once so fresh and promising. Only in this way is it possible to keep alive the message or problem that he wishesto lter through his paintings.

Just as unique as his view of the world is his signature st yle. Thus he need not even sign his canvases, yet they are easily identiable.Individual brush strokes are applied in such a way that the visual and haptic contact with the surface of the canvas is not disrupted. The

paint is applied thinly with a semi-dry brush, creating on the surface a foundation for further spatial planes. A smooth texture and theneutral tone of the underlying gesso almost always permeates the painting. He has developed a style of painting or drawing with a brushusing one continuous stroke (almost nonexistent in the European context), whereby the line proceeds at various depths. It is preciselythe creation of planes within the painting that has become his way to express the penetrability of depth, which is characteristic of animportant line of his work in recent years.

Some of his paintings contain only a few traces of the brush, nearly imperceptible, which slightly disrupt the balance of the staticbackground and draw the eye with their unobtrusiveness, their subtlety. They are pre-images of a sort, as though deliberately leftunnished it is up to the viewer to complete the image. Other paintings are so dominated by dark colours that we can discernalmost nothing in them our eyes need a moment to adjust, and only then do we start to make out colours and shapes. Kokolia has alsoexperimented with various lighting possibilities, from coloured lights to darkness, illuminating the work in split-second bursts so that theresulting image (afterimage) forms eetingly on the retina. The contrast between light and shadow is the basis for the camera obscura,which Kokolia used in his installation at the Vclav pla Gallery in Prague in 1991. 6


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In his paintings he wants to convey the impression of spatial depth as it was articulated by Maurice Merleau-Ponty: I live in it fromthe inside; I am immersed in it. After all, the world is all around me, not in front of me. 7For example, he paints corner pictures,which contain a pictorial space between them; on other canvases he applies a repeating structure, a raster or irregular grid, whichduring prolonged viewing can create the illusion of depth. He adapts the principles of stereoscopic images, which he considers to bea kind of outmoded genre. (They produce a 3D effect because of their continuously repeating pattern. If we view such an image andsimultaneously focus on an imaginary point behind the picture, there is the impression that the picture has depth. This is due to the factthat the left and right eye see different repetitions of the same pattern and the brain then combines the two patterns into one, which,in relation to the surrounding pictorial information, seems to be shifted backward.) In addition, he also works with special technology

(lenticular printing) that enables very easy, user-friendly 3D depiction8. His aim in these works is to draw the viewer into the pictureand to teach them, in a way, to look at normal images. The best agent or adversary for him is the technique of oil painting. He saysabout his approach:

I usually paint some snapshot, some distinctively illuminated scene I glimpse somewhere, even peripherally, and which then remainsin my head. It tends to have a differing measure of concreteness and resolution, bu t it always carries light in a unique way. SometimesI can hit upon it, but more often it comes to me without work the image oats in my mind simply because in competition with allother images this one has unaccountably survived. I am merely its agent and, if all goes well, also merely its painter. That my picturesmay look like lianas, mazes, or winding footpaths still has a source somewhere else. Their mesh is nothing but a screen throughwhich the image percolates during the painting process. To a certain extent it is possible to separate the structure from the motif itself,something like isolating a photograph from the raster, pixels or grain of the lm. Sometimes it turns out as a complicated and laborious

maze, which liberates me from quick expression. Painters have at their disposal immediate and thus somehow authentic expression but they can also work relentlessly on something monotonous and impersonal and, oddly enough, into this tedious work, via someunchecked side roads, appears more mystery than could be achieved with the expressive gesture.9

From narrative drawings on small sheets of paper he progressed to nonobjective large-format paintings and, more recently, to watercoloursdepicting trees, painted spontaneously and in a somewhat more readable manner. Kokolia observes trees with an unguarded, enthralledgaze, and in his watercolours is stored the energy of this gaze, like heat in coal. The watercolour technique, allowing for only a quick,immediate rendering without the possibility of revision, seems to feign as if there is nothing complex lurking behind it. Yet the informedviewer could justiably feel unsettled as to whether the artist is in effect trying to say that when we x our eyes somewhere it isonly a subjective illusion. Indeed, rays of light land upon the eye upside-down, reected from the object under observation - therefore,the trees are actually looking at us. This, incidentally, is claimed in the words of the painter Paul Klee, who once wrote: In a forest,

I have felt many times over that it was not I who looked at the forest. Some days I felt that the trees were looking at me, were speakingto me () I was there, listening () I think that the painter must be penetrated by the universe and not want to penetrate it. 10

Kokolia shows us that today, at a time when we are inundated by countless visual assaults, wonderment need not be elicited by somethingextraordinary, but quite the opposite by something seen hundreds of times. A tree is a fascinating object, with its complex structure,its arrangement in space, its constantly changing polystratication of leaves. Observation of trees has inspired poets, philosophers andartists throughout history. But going out into the open air and trying to paint them is not viewed as something altogether normal thesedays. The situation in contemporary art is such that a painting of an ordinary tree would not be comprehensible outside the context ofsome sophisticated conceptual project. Landscape painting, once so popular, particularly in 19th-century European art, has graduallybecome synonymous with kitsch, and it is recovering from this lack of esteem only very slowly. Perhaps this is also one of the reasonswhy Kokolia turned to this motif, for it systematically addresses areas that are on the edge or those that involve viewer participation.

He explains his motivations like this:


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For me, the landscape is always so far away, its impossible to grasp. So I would rather paint just the air, since that reaches to here,all the way to the nose and the pupil of the eye. And the air also carries with it colours, and with them also shapes, and when I paint itsomewhat faithfully the whole thing even winds up looking like a landscape. () Sometimes during the attractive force of looking I oataway so irretrievably that Im afraid I wont come back. But basically, I take a sly satisfaction just in looking I enjoy the way thingslook and on top of that I still get to paint this simple pleasure. What else to do with it? After all, one would expect that painters enjoylooking, even to the point of obsession, and then also to paint it so it seems simple to me. () This method excites me because it is soregular, so normal. Fifteen years ago I wrote about normal painting, and I still miss it, I still see how something extra gets added to themould, something about which the artist thinks, it is precisely this, out of all possible things, that makes it art. But I dont exclude that with

landscape paintings there exists an increased probability that they wont have very much in common with art. They will just be ordinarypaintings and tries. So what?11

Kokolia comes out of the traditions of modern European painting, and his heart is probably closest to Claude Monet, with his tirelessobservation of a particular motif and the breaking down of the image into discrete stains of colour. At the same time, however, he wouldwish for Monets eye to see through Mondrians framework.12 Thus he afrms the validity of the discovery of the grid 13and theprogression of a particular stream of modern art from the concrete to the abstract, from the organic to the geometric, from the ephemeralto the eternal and back. The key to understanding the signicance of his work, however, is to be sought in contexts far removed in timeand place. His manner of thinking uniquely combines European experience with an almost Taoist view of all the worlds problems,symbolized by a fundamental unity and harmony. His philosophical texts give an added dimension to his paintings, for we can view themas guidelines for reading his multi-layered images.

Kokolia does not inherently represent or imitate subject matter in his paintings, and it is even possible to say that he tries to capture theopposite of something: the absence of a subject. He instinctively wants to resist fascination with one clearly dened pole, so he haslearned to simultaneously perceive each thing along with its negative space, to regard a tree in such a way that the eyes are able to seealso unnamed shapes, the nothing between clusters of branches. There is no here and there, no inner or outer, no distance from whatis depicted, no perspective, no foreground or background. Nonetheless, they contain some signs, traces or ciphers for the inception ofan image somewhere between the viewer and the canvas. These images are the visual records of the creative and intellectual process,instruments for contemplation, which touch upon fundamental questions about possible ways to understand the world.

Notes:1) It was not until 1997 that a considerable part of this series of drawings appeared in book form, issued by the Trigon publishing house2) His path was clearly made easier by encounters with Eastern philosophy. After all, it was a time of discovery, when the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was published

in Czechoslovakia and typewritten copies of texts by D. T. Suzuki on Zen were rst circulated. Concepts such as attachment and nyat (usually translated as emptiness or the Void)entered into wider consciousness, and to be a Buddhist became a kind of fashion statement

3) Raimanov, Ivana, Vladimr Kokolia, in: Vtvarn umn (Visual Art) 1991, p. 554) The concept innocent eye was rst used by John Ruskin in 1857 in The Elements of Drawing: The whole technical power of painting depends on our recovery of what may be called

the innocence of the eye; that is to say, of a childish perception of [these] at stains of colour; merely as such, without consciousness of what they signify as a blind man would see themif suddenly gifted with sight

5) Kokolia, Vladimr, Wonderment, inaugural lecture, 1996, the Academy of Fine Arts6) In this context it is interesting to point out that the rst surviving mention of the principles behind the pinhole camera or camera obscura belongs to Mozi (Mo-Ti) (470 to 390 BCE),

a Chinese philosopher and the founder of Mohism. Mozi referred to this device as a collecting plate or locked treasure room. The very term camera obscura (dark room) was rstpublished by Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) in Prague in 1605.

7) About Things, 2010, Dialog vdy s umnm (Dialogue Between Science and Art), Civic Association, esk Budjovice8) The technology used to produce pictures with the illusion of depth was created in 19409) Merleau-Pont y, Maurice, Eye and Mind, p. 30910) The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetic s Reader: Philosophy and Painting, ed. Galen A. Johnson, trans. Michael B. Smith (Evanston: Northwest ern University Press, 1993), p. 1211) Kokolia, Vladimr, unpublished letter, around 200312) Kokolia, Vladimr, No Problem, exhibition catalogue, Topiv salon, Prague, 201313) Rosalind Krauss explains grids as structures imper vious both to time and to incident,which will not permit the projection of language into the domain of the visual, and the result is silence.

in: Krauss, Rosalind, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986


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(Vladimr Kokolia)1990 (Jindrich Chalupecky Award) 3580300()E200

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:[1] 1997Trigon

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[3](Ivona Raimanov) 1991, p55.

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1986


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O i


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One artist believed in the existence of art and sacriced his life to it. Then it proved to be no life at all.

One artist thought that if he tried to save art, he would be making the world a better place. He became an accursed artist.

One artist put great stock in balls. Thanks to balls, he reached the highest echelons of art, and his balls were even introduced in artclasses. One day he woke up and his balls were gone.

One artist was envious that a curator makes the artist. He tried to make a curator and found that there was no way back.

One artist did everything his curator could have wished. They were beautiful paintings.

One artist swore by concept. When the concept dissipated, he swore by directness. But the concept returned, and so he had to swearthat even the oath was a concept.

One artist was simple, and so believed that art also should be simple.

One artist had nothing but his art, for which Jesus never forgave him.

One artist wanted to enjoy himself, so for a while he did not think about art.

One artist was ashamed of his immense gift. Every time he had to demonstrate it, he blushed to the roots of hair, and so it was onlywhispered about.

One artist revealed his great gif t in public so routinely that there was nothing left to reveal.

One artist wanted to take revenge on the world, so he vowed that he would only deceive. Despite his best efforts, vengeance neverhappened.

One artist

Vladimr Kokolia

O ti t th ht th t h w t l b ti t b t th h b t l b b t


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One artist thought that he was a natural-born artist, but then he became a natural-born bureaucrat.

One artist, famous in the Czech Republic, managed to become invisible every time he crossed the border.

One artist was so articial that not even karmic forces could touch his artistic endeavors.

One lesser artist proclaimed himself to be the rival of the great artist, and, indeed, he became immediately greater.

One artist was not any good at art, and high art demanded that he conceal this fact.

One artist wanted to become famous posthumously, only that he died at an advanced age.

One artist came up with a completely new kind of art. But alas, it was still art.

One artist wanted to combine politics and art; unfortunately, he succeeded.

One artist made a pact with the devil, but the devil turned out to be a reliable partner.

One artist chose to base his fame on trivialities. So he did, and things remained that way.

One artist stole the strength of another artist, and thus inadvertently lost everything for which he had a weakness.

One artist wanted to go down in history, but history, as ill luck would have it, didnt come about.

One artist declared a holy war against nonart, and only thanks to that did he hide the fact that he was no artist at all.

One artist wanted to teach art, but in the end he just taught how to teach art.

One artist taught inimitability. He was successful in this, and he died forgotten.


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Glossary


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Belly We learn to look through the belly. Through the belly we perceive strength.

Obversely, we see beauty through the breath.

What to paintIt really is this simple: Lets paint what we like.To discover what we truly like, however, is innitely more complicated.

Reach Besides the fact that a line lies on itself, it additionally has power beyond itself, and can reach to various distances. Lines must reach each other.

Other side of the barricade Spontaneity is promoted by the straight-laced, letting loose is championed by the uptight, the rationalists profess intuition,communication is loved by the self-absorbed, creativity is supported by creatures of habit, humbleness is spoken aboutby the arrogant, and wonderment is enthused about by the boring and the bored.

But we advocate dryness, routine, tedium and, indeed, even reason.

Second look At rst look, we see the appearance. At second look, we see the appearance of the appearance. In other words, the way it looked before the rst look.

Spirit Through a triangle passes the spirit of a triangle, through a stain the spirit of a stain.

Information An impediment to seeing the image.

Good Because we do not know everything that a painting can affect and on what levels, it is safer to err on the good side

in its creation.

Glossary

Vladimr Kokolia

Lateral direction


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A line continues in its own direction.The adventure, however, should not be anticipated at its endpoint, but rather from the sides.

Ignoramus An ignoramus is the gauge of our work. We never ignore him, rather we cultivate him, even within ourselves.

Advertises A painting not only looks a certain way, but at the same time it also promises,

advertises, how it would like to be, should be, could be. This makes it possible for paintings to judge themselves.

Compost We do not refuse any thoughts or feelings; we just place them on a heap. In our eld, there is no such thing as refuse, or, there is nothing in it but refuse.

The constant of looking We see a thing no less with closed eyes than we do with open ones. As long as we look.

Drawing from somewhere to somewhere If a drawing should also be a story, then we draw it from somewhere to somewhere.

Standard A good artist is able to meet a standard. Someone then manages to surpass that standard.

It still is not enough we want for our things to set the standard.

Fog with a hard pencil To capture uncertain things in an uncertain manner isnt quite adequate. It is far more acceptable to capture certain things in an uncertain way.

Inhalation, exhalation As we inhale (inspiration), we are receptive, the thing comes to us, we succumb to it, we experience wonderment. As we exhale (expiration), we comprehend the thing, we gather its power and we send it off. With inhalation we look, with exhalation we draw.

Exaggeration


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To really capture a line, we must exaggerate it. It is well known that in order to be exact, we must overstate the state of affairs. I only note that we exaggerate not just the exuberant curves in their exuberance, but also the less exuberant curves

in their straightness.

Recording of time In a painting there is a recording of the time which we have devoted to it.

It is recorded automatical ly; the task is to nd a corresponding playing device.

To not teach Teaching something effec tively prevents students from coming to it on their own. But if it looks as though they wont come to it on their own, then it is necessary to teach. Therefore, when teaching occurs, it means that the teacher has become resigned, and that the students have disappointed.

Neutral color Any color that is, in relation to two colors, the third one.

A painting isnt at Depth is inherent to a painting. A plane is a special case; to create a truly at painting is difcult, if not impossible. Painters are recognizable not by the depth they achieve, but by how precisely they establish planes within it.

An image against a word The more we comprehend that an image and a word are incompatible , the more we appreciate that at the end of an image

a word is always found, and at the end of a word, an image. Nothing but the word is seen by us. Nothing but the image speaks to us.

Outline To draw an outline means to always draw around a thing without touching it. That isnt at all a bad thing, of course, as long as we do not wish for the drawing to get to the heart of the matter.

Reward If the art work itself does not reward the artist, then nothing helps if money is received for it.

Originality

Lets not try to be original. It is enough when we do something that no one can do instead of us.

ListeningW l f h f


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We listen for what a painting wants from us. Sometimes it wants us not to listen to it. Then we have to listen especially well whether or not to listen.

Surface The surface has two sides. They have a single appearance.

Work on the background The foreground is noticed by everyone, thats why it is the foreground. We, however, notice the background, perhaps even more than the foreground. In our drawing, however, everyone must rst and foremost notice the foreground.

Repetition A repeated action enables us to capture things which are unrepeatable.

Problem It is necessary to have a problem. It must be our problem, the one that has been waiting for us. If we are lucky, it will be a universal problem, which vaguely senses the hordes upon it. Should we have a truly great problem, we also can become great painters. The problem gives us the format. True, we use the word problem, but it is not necessarily negative instead of that word we could just as easily say,

for instance, joy.

First line Before we make the rst line on a sheet of paper, there already exist the four lines of the papers edges and numerous

lines of force.

Pretending with pretense There is no difference between pretending with pretense and pretending sincerely. Both are equally sincere.

Crossing the boundaries Crossing the boundaries of a discipline does not require any audacity when we do not know what those boundaries are.

Direction of a lookA look has a direction.

It goes there or here.

Sense of absenceT ti th t d t ti thi bl t d thi th t l d


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To notice that we do not notice something enables us to do something that no one else does.

Sides of a line A line has two sides. Whats more, it has a front side and a back side.

Middle edge A line in the middle of a shape, which, after moving our position in relation to the shape 90, we should seeas an outline.

Freedom We dont want freedom. On the contrary : We want the picture to originate exactly as it had to. When we are especial ly lucky, we have no choice.

Escape It isnt hard to make paintings which take us somewhere else.

What is hard is to make paintings which bring us here.

Visuality To orient oneself purely towards visuality is just as short-sighted as, during a meal, to let oneself be driven only by taste

and to disregard nutrition.

Result We are interested in the origin; the result comes too late.

Gesture An expression of strength consumes strength. Strength is at its greatest just before it is manifested.

Appearance of a painting We believe that a painting is still something other than its appearance.

Despair We can never be certain if we are desperate enough. And whether others have not surpassed us in their despair. In this competition , however, the most desperate are those who are completely unaware of their own despair. Fortunately, not even we ourselves can sense the true depth of our own despair.


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I look up into the crown of a tree and try to not identify it. It is easiest when I suppress the human compulsion towards incessant labelling.And so instead of leaves I glimpse only after -shapes in the background. I try to notice this background, its shape. The background therebyjumps to the foreground, and the immediate environment establishes itself as the new background. This creates visual hierarchies: At the

forefront are a few leaves, then a ring of leaves on a twig, then an entire branch, a ring of branches, the entire crown of the tree. I hopethat through the trees I will eventually see the forest.

It may sound complicated, but Im just trying to get a slight head start on looking; to see how I see. It never ceases to amaze me that thesevisual gradations in foliage are so miraculously well painted, each perfectly differentiated from the other in terms of luminosity andcontrast and so the gaze naturally submerges itself in the depths of the crown of the tree and then circles back.

Foliage is one of those plurale uncountable, like hair or drapery, that the Baroque painter Karel Mander said are impossible to paintwithout talent. When I try to recreate what I see, I dont agonize too much about such fractal motifs. I must see them afresh, forget whatI know about them, enter into the ensuing visual chaos without any preconceptions. In such a desperate situation I reach for anything,geometry and iconic shapes. Of ten I must delineate, number the spatial planes. And so in return for this newly emergent orientation I usually

forfeit the creation of an ordinary likeness.Nonetheless, I am not completely resigned to phenomenal appearances. Even before a person attempts to decipher the chaos, it is possibleto pick up on a sort of frequency in the crown of a tree, a characteristic music, a unique kind of visual tickling, in one instance typicalfor the oak, another time for the ash, at another time for the hornbeam. The linden in this respect is downright psychedelic. I carefully tunemyself to the given frequency, and from that moment on I just hope that the tenor of the resonances is transmitted all the way to the drawing.The shapeless, nameless formations meanwhile earn a shape or an outright name. This is a kind of work that still remains exclusively forpainters it can not be replaced by photography, and I would not like to reduce it to a fractal dimension, a Fibonacci series, or to someabstract principle.

Vladimr Kokolia


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Karel Mander


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27 Diagram, 1987, ink on paper, 30x4250 Four drawings from the Big Cycle, 1983, ink on paper, 32x4454 Four drawings from the Big Cycle, 1984, ink on paper, 32x4458 Eight drawings from the Big Cycle, 1986, ink on paper, 42x5866 Forty drawings from the Big Cycle, 1997, ink on paper, 21x3086 Two frottages from the Big Cycle, 1984, pastel, 33x4588 Twenty two prints from the Big Cycle, 1984, linocut, 33x45112 Fields 1, 1993, oil on canvas, 550x210113 Fields 2, 1993, oil on canvas, 540x205

114 Mice heaven, 1990, oil on canvas, 140x120115 Gates, 1990, oil on canvas, 75x110116 Hot ground, 1987, oil on canvas, 150x189117 Nude with four breast, 1987, oil on canvas, 140x120118 Oath, 1987, oil on canvas , 163x125119 Portrait of M. Machala, 1986, oil on canvas, 200x162120 Mice, 1989, acryl on canvas, 140x130121 Mesurement, 1987, oil on canvas, 132x197122 Snack, 1985, oil on canvas, 99x110123 On shore, 1985, oil on canvas, 162x145124 Roads and doors, 1986, oil on canvas, 200x160125 March, 1986, oil on canvas, 162x149

145 Storm center, 2001, oil on canvas, 204x198146 Mosque, 2004, acryl on canvas, 132x127147 Hawiatun, 2001, oil on canvas, 236x211148 Pots, 2004, oil on canvas, 100x68149 Blackberry, 2006, oil on canvas, 135x130150 Hill, 2008, oil on canvas, 100x76151 Flies, 2004, oil on canvas, 162x132152 Scenery 1, 1996, acryl on canvas, 197x161153 Scenery 2, 1996, acryl on canvas, 197x161

154 Ravine, 2005, oil on canvas, 160x148155 Turf, 2005, oil on canvas, 135x135156 Crown of tree, 2002, oil on canvas, 242x194157 Grove, 2005, oil on canvas, 150x146158 Spruces and beeches, 2005, oil on canvas, 142x148159 Woods Zadni les, 2005, oil on canvas, 100x150160 Woods Lazebnice, 2004, oil on canvas, 132x127161 Parkland Hvezda, 2004, oil on canvas, 132x100162 Grass, 2002, oil on canvas, 100x118163 Grass, 2002, oil on canvas, 132x80164 Backligh ting, 2011, oil on canvas, 150x136165 Stereo, drawing 10, 2012, , 29x21

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126 Bush, 1987, oil on canvas, 150x189127 Stubble, 1994, oil on canvas, 89x101128 Noon, 1993, oil on canvas, 145x145129 Morning, 1993, oil on canvas, 145x145130 Birch, 2002, oil on canvas, 218x154131 Landscape, 1996, oil on canvas, 100x110132 Bush, 2003, oil on canvas, 243x300133 Ice, 1995, oil on canvas, 150x130134 Birch, 2002, oil on canvas , 218x174135 Bouquet, 2008, oil on canvas, 300x243136 Roots, 2002, oil on canvas, 131x122137 Root system, 2002, oil on canvas, 157x131

138 Bush, 2002, oil on canvas, 146x120139 Strings 2, 2003, oil on canvas, 130x130140 Under a tree, 2008, acryl on canvas, 114x128141 Views, 2010, oil on canvas, 130x150142 Strings, 2008, oil on canvas, 160x132143 Mesurement, 1987, oil on canvas, 132x197144 Thicket, 2002, oil on canvas, 120x146

166 Foliage, 2006, oil on canvas, 242x194167 Generations, 2010, oil on canvas, 234x189168 Elder, 1998, oil on canvas, 130x100169 Elder, 2003, oil on canvas, 230x190170 Strings, 2003, oil on canvas, 130x125171 Big turf, 2009, oil on canvas, 280x250172 Woods Zadni les, 2005, oil on canvas, 100x150173 Annual ring, 2007, oil on canvas, 100x100174 Shrub, 2000, oil on canvas, 100x100175 Ash after Mondrian, 2013, oil on canvas, 110x100176 File, 2008, oil on canvas, 100x62177 Ash 2, 2013, oil on canvas, 142x137

178 Ash in backlighting, 2013, acryl on canvas, 205x201179 Backlighting, 2013, acryl on canvas, 94x70180 Aspen in dawn, 2013, oil and acryl on canvas, 58x55181 Hill, 2013, acryl on canvas, 127x99182 Ash, 2013, oil on canvas, 132x83183 Apple tree, 2013, acryl on canvas, 108x98184 Evening, 2012, acryl on canvas, 150x130

185 Apple tree 2, 2013, acryl on canvas, 112x98186 Ash at sunset 2, 2013, oil on canvas, 89x152187 Ash at sunset 1, 2013, acryl on canvas, 162x146188 Flies in backlighting , 2013, acryl on canvas, 213x130189 Dawn, 2013, acryl on canvas, 213x130190 Rear side, 2013, acryl on canvas, 205x201191 Front side, 2013, oil on canvas, 205x201192 Walnut 1, 2013, oil on canvas, 239x200193 Walnut 2, 2013, oil on canvas, 239x200

196 Ash in backlighting , 2012, watercolor on paper, 73x55197 Walnut, 2012, watercolor on paper, 42x30198 Oak, 2012, watercolor on paper, 73x55199 Linden, 2012, watercolor on paper, 73x55200 Birch1, 2012, watercolor on paper, 42x58201 Birch2, 2012, watercolor on paper, 73x55202 Birch3, 2012, watercolor on paper, 73x55203 Birch4, 2012, watercolor on paper, 73x55204 Ash in backlighting , 2012, watercolor on paper, 58x42205 Ash in sunset, 2012, watercolor on paper, 42x58206 Ash in twilight, 2012, watercolor on paper, 58x42207 Pear, 2012, watercolor on paper, 58x42


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208 Four drawings of trees, 2012, ink on paper, 30x21214 Painting (front and rear side), 1995, object, 98x90x2,5216 Wave (last two phases), 2011, straws, 65x65x65218 Archont (in memory of Jan Mancuska), 2011, paper, 10x30x40219 Platonic solids, 2012, various sizes220 Plato, 2000, tape, 25x15x15 Plato, 2000, tape, 15x22x15 Plato, 2000, tape, 25x22x22221 Plato, 2000, tape, 25x20x10222 Plato, 2000, tape, 25x15x15223 Plato, 2000, tape, 10x30x10224 Yin Yang 1, 6x12

225 Yin Yang 2, 15x20228 Four images from the Legend, 2004, camera obscura photo on paper, 100x70

27 , 1987, , 30x4250 , 1983, , 32x4454 , 1984, , 32x4458 ,1986, , 42x5866 , 1997, , 21x3086 , 1984, , 33x4588 , 1984, , 33x45112 1, 1993, , 550x210113 2, 1993, , 540x205

114 , 1990, , 140x120115 , 1990, , 75x110116 , 1987, , 150x189117 , 1987, , 140x120118 , 1987, , 163x125119 M. Machala, 1986, , 200x162120 , 1989, , 140x130121 , 1987, , 132x197122 , 1985, , 99x110123 , 1985, , 162x145124 , 1986, , 200x160125 , 1986, , 162x149

126 1987 150 189

145 , 2001, , 204x198146 , 2004, , 132x127147 , 2001, , 236x211148 , 2004, , 100x68149 , 2006, , 135x130150 , 2008, , 100x76151 , 2004, , 162x132152 1, 1996, , 197x161153 2, 1996, , 197x161

154 , 2005, , 160x148155 , 2005, , 135x135156 , 2002, , 242x194157 , 2005, , 150x146158 , 2005, , 142x148159 , 2005, , 100x150160 , 2004, , 132x127161 , 2004, , 132x100162 , 2002, , 100x118163 , 2002, , 132x80164 , 2011, , 150x136165 , 10, 2012, , 29x21

166 2006 242 194


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126 , 1987, , 150x189127 , 1994, , 89x101128 , 1993, , 145x145129 , 1993, , 145x145130 , 2002, , 218x154131 , 1996, , 100x110132 , 2003, , 243x300133 , 1995, , 150x130134 , 2002, , 218x174135 , 2008, , 300x243136 , 2002, , 131x122137 , 2002, , 157x131

138 , 2002, , 146x120139 2, 2003, , 130x130140 , 2008, , 114x128141 , 2010, , 130x150142 , 2008, , 160x132143 , 1987, , 132x197144 , 2002, , 120x146

166 , 2006, , 242x194167 , 2010, , 234x189168 , 1998, , 130x100169 , 2003, , 230x190170 , 2003, , 130x125171 2009, , 280x250172 , 2005, , 100x150173 , 2007, , 100x100174 , 2000, , 100x100175 , 2013, , 110x100176 , 2008, , 100x62177 2, 2013, , 142x137

178 , 2013, , 205x201179 , 2013, , 94x70180 , 2013, oil and , 58x55181 , 2013, , 127x99182 , 2013, , 132x83183 , 2013, , 108x98184 , 2012, , 150x130

185 2, 2013, , 112x98186 2, 2013, , 89x152187 1, 2013, , 162x146188 , 2013, , 213x130189 2013, , 213x130190 , 2013, , 205x201191 , 2013, , 205x201192 1, 2013, , 239x200193 2, 2013, , 239x200

196 , 2012, , 73x55197 , 2012, , 42x30198 , 2012, , 73x55199 , 2012, , 73x55200 1, 2012, , 42x58201 2, 2012, , 73x55202 3, 2012, , 73x55203 4, 2012, , 73x55204 , 2012, , 58x42205 , 2012, , 42x58206 , 2012, , 58x42207 , 2012, , 58x42

208 2012 30 21


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208 , 2012, , 30x21214 (), 1995,, 98x90x2,5216 (), 2011, 65x65x65218 (Jn Mancuska), 2011, , 10x30x40219 , 2012, 220 , 2000, , 25x15x15 , 2000, , 15x22x15 , 2000, , 25x22x22221 , 2000, , 25x20x10222 , 2000, , 25x15x15223 , 2000, , 10x30x10224 1, 6x12

225 2, 15x20228 , 2004, , 100x70


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234 photo: Miroslav Ambroz

He received his MFA degree from the Academy of Fine Art in Prague in 1981. In eighties, Kokolia was recognized as a cult drawer,with hundreds of sarcastic drawings of the Big Cycle. During nineties, he received international attention with his paintings whichintegrate reprezentational motives with patterns, and physical gesture with meditation. In 1990, Kokolia became the rst winner of theprestigious Jindich Chalupeck Prize, and, consequently, he stayed for six months as artist in residence at the Headlands Center for theArts in San Francisco. Kokolia has been the subject of more then 90 solo exhibitions, and his work was included in about 360 groupshows. In 1992, he was the only Czech artist participating in the Documenta IX in Kasel, Germany. Kokolias work has been collectedat the S.M.A.K. in Gent, at Albertina in Vienna, National Gallery in Prague. Since 1992 Kokolia has been the head of the printmakingdepartment II at the Academy of Fine Ar ts in Prague. Besides painting and drawing he is also a qualied instructor of the traditionalChen family taijiquan.He lives and works in Veversk Knnice and Prague, since 1992 teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague.

Born

1956 in Veversk Knnice, Czechoslovakia

Education

1981 M.F.A. in Painting, Academy of Fine Arts, Prague

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Vladimr Kokolia


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Selected Solo Exhibitions

2013 Looking to the Crown of a Tree, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chengdu2013 Visual Penetration, Czech Embassy, Beijing2013 No Problem, Topic Salon, Prague2011 Shop, Havelka Gallery, Prague2011 Power Transmission, Vaclav Spala Gallery, Prague2009 Drawing has two sides, At Home Gallery, amorn2008 Bordel, Havelka Gallery, Prague2006 Good, Ars Gallery, Brno2003 House of Art, House of Art, Brno2003 Vision, Galerie Behmt

2002 Energy, Galerie Ars, Brno1998 Breasts, Manes Gallery, Prague1995 Langzaam, Knoll Galerie, Vienna1994 Het avontuur, De Vleeshal, Middelburg1994 Wechselspiel, Kunstraum Mnchen, Mnchen1993 Narcissus End, Museum van hedendaagse kunst, Gent1992 In the Middle of Fields, Galerie Behmt, Praha

Selected Group Exhibitions

2011 Fundaments & Sediments, GHMP, Praha2011 Les amis de mes amis sont mes amis, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris2009 All That Is Solid Melts into Air, MUHKA2004 Certain Traces, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles2001 New Connection, World Trade Center, New York2000 Storm Centers, S.M.A.K., Watou1997 SelestAr t, Frac Alsace, Selestat

1996 Dawn of Magicians, National Gallery in Prague, Prague1994 Europa, Europa, Kunst-Und Ausstellungshalle, Bonn1993 Der andere Ausgang, Ludwig Forum, Aachen1992 Documenta IX, Aue-pavil ions, Kassel1991 The Exhibition of Czech Contemporary Art, Taiwan Museum of Art, Taiwan1991 Three Artists from Bohemia, P.S.1 Museum, New York1990 Expressions, Third Eye Centre, Glasgow1990 Czech Art Today, Walker Hill Art Center, Seoul1987 Groteskque in Czech Art of 20th Century, GHMP, Praha


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198180Kokolia901990KokoliaKokolia903601992KokoliaS.M.A.K.1992KokoliaVeversk Knnice1992

1956 Veversk Knnice

1981

2013 , 2013


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2013 , 2013 , 2013 , 2011 , Havelka2011 , 2009 , 2008 , Havelka2006 , 2003 , 2003 , BEHEMOT2002 , ARS1998 , Manes1995 , Knoll1994 , De Vleeshal1994 , 1993 , 1992 , Behmt

2011 , GHMP2011 , 2009 , MUHKA2004 , 2001 , 2000 , S.M.A.K.1997 , Frac Alsace

1996 , 1994 ,, 1993 , 1992 , 1991 , 1991 , P.S.11990 , 1990 ,1987 20,GHMP


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publisher:

Embassy of the Czech Republic in China 2 Ritan Lu, Jianguomenwai, 100600 Bejing 2100600

editor:

Miroslav Ambroz

production:

Martin Hoek

translation:

Frances Gao, Mimi Fronczak Rogers

A special thank to Tchang Jn-ling Ruskov and Dr. Zlata ern for their generous help with Czech/Chinese revisionof One Artist and Glossary texts.


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texts:

Libor Seka, L Peng, Vladimr Kokolia, Miroslav Ambroz

photographs

Libor Seka, archiv Vladimr Kokolia, Martin Polk, Miroslav Ambroz

graphic design & pre-press:

Miroslav Ambroz, Vladimr Kokolia

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication (whether in hardcopy or electronic form) may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the owners of the copyright. 2013

Kokolia Moca Chengdu 2013

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