The works will be newly on display inside and outside Špilberk Castle from 6 October 2022 to 8 January 2023. Photo Credit: Muzeum města Brna.
Brno, Oct. 2 (BD) – On the occasion of the recent jubilee of sculptor Jan Hendrych, the Brno City Museum and its department, the Brno City Gallery, are organising the Jan Hendrych 85 exhibition, which will not just be a classic interior exhibition, but will spread into the exterior of the castle. The outdoor exhibition is already open for visitors, while the indoor part of the exhibition will open to the public on 6 October 2022.
The west wing inside the castle displays more intimate works, illustrating the different thematic units and temporal phases of Hendrych’s work: portrait heads, figures, bridges and doors, representing the artist’s way of thinking, life and approach to creation, influenced, among other things, by the inhospitable period of normalisation and the communist regime.
The south-eastern bastion is inhabited by a set of metal and enamel sculptures, created by Hendrych during the Ostrava Smalt Art Symposium. The opposite bastion to the south-west houses a group of concrete figures. Figures form the main axis of the artist’s work and for him were a symbol of human mythology. Encountering both sculptural ensembles, enamel and concrete, installed in a dialogue with the architecture of the castle and views of the city, the exhibition displays how Hendrych’s sculptures respond sensitively to changes in light and weather conditions and the power with which it can control not only the surrounding space, but also emotions, explains exhibition curator Ilona Víchová.
In our hectic world, Hendrych’s work aims to focus attention on the importance of the purity of pleasure in any activity of human life. Zbyněk Šolc, Director of the Brno City Museum, suggests that the exhibition might help exhausted and disoriented visitors to navigate to the knowledge of truly enduring values and inspire us to genuineness and depth not only in our thoughts but also in our actions.
The Jan Hendrych 85 exhibition is a continuation of an exhibition project that took place this year at the Klatovy / Klenová Gallery under the direction of curators Petr Krátký of the Klatovy / Klenová Gallery and Ilona Víchová of the Brno City Museum. Like the Klenova exhibition, the one in Brno is also conceived in two parts: an indoor and an outdoor exhibition.
