Čestmír Suška on Paper

The exhibition Čestmír Suška on Paper offers the most comprehensive survey to date of a lesser-known yet remarkably significant aspect of the artist’s oeuvre. Through drawings, prints, sketches, journals and other works on paper created alongside his sculptural practice since the late 1970s, it reveals Suška’s creative process, his experimentation and his search for forms that would later develop into monumental sculptural works.

This compact retrospective traces more than four decades of the artist’s career – from his early drawings, graphic experiments, monotypes and period Xerox works to large-format coloured pastels, sketchbooks, journals, scripts for the Kolotoč Visual Theatre and other works that have rarely been shown to the public. It reveals a surprisingly intimate side of an artist best known for his monumental sculptures in public space, demonstrating how many of his motifs, artistic principles and formal solutions recur across different media and throughout the decades.

The exhibition also includes a selection of three-dimensional works, allowing visitors to explore the relationship between drawing, artistic concept and the resulting sculptural work.

To accompany the exhibition, a comprehensive publication exploring this important aspect of the artist’s oeuvre has also been released.

Čestmír Suška

Čestmír Suška (*1952, Prague) is one of the leading figures of contemporary Czech sculpture. He emerged on the Czech art scene at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s and, over the following decades, became one of the prominent representatives of Czech Postmodernism. He is a co-founder of the Kolotoč Visual Theatre and was a member of the Tvrdohlaví (The Stubborn Ones) artists' group from 1987 to 1991.

Throughout his career, Suška has combined drawing, printmaking, objects and sculpture. His work is characterised by archetypal forms, the expressive qualities of materials, the interplay of light and the transformation of found objects. He has gained international recognition above all for his monumental sculptures created from carved industrial tanks, many of which have become part of public spaces in the Czech Republic and abroad. Alongside his artistic practice, he has long been active in the organisation of cultural life. He founded Studio Bubec in Prague's Řeporyje district, an important centre for contemporary art, artist residencies and international collaboration.

The exhibition opening will take place on Friday, 20 November, at 6 pm.