Elżbieta Grosseová – I Write Life in Clay

The exhibition in the stables of Museum Kampa presents the work of the Czech-Polish sculptor Elżbieta Grosseová (*1937). Born in Warsaw, she graduated from the Akademie výtvarných umění ve Varšavě in 1966 and in 1973 settled permanently in Czechoslovakia. She first made sculptures in metal, then turned to ceramics, which she developed to a large extent within the bounds of applied art for existential reasons.

At the end of the 1980s, Grosseová returned to free-standing sculpture, which she continues to develop today. She works on a monumental scale in fireclay. She models it directly, uncovering the material and adding details, while her choice of monochrome black supports the plasticity and radicalness of her forms. Through her distinctive sculptural language, based on the tension between a geometrically clear, constructed shape and an organically living surface, she explores themes of fragility, transience and instability, questions closely bound up with human existence.

Alongside medium-sized sculptures, the exhibition will present Grosseová's largest work, Maraton (2022). This sculptural ensemble of 37 human legs, symbolising the artist's year of birth, was created by Grosseová within a single year. She differentiated each limb through modelling, surface and dramatic form, and filled each with its own story. Individual limbs may stand as sculptures in their own right, yet only within the whole do they enter into mutual relationships, constellations and bonds, subtly referring not only to the human being as a unique individual but also to the principles of human community.

Curator: Iloná Víchová

Production: Rozalie Pánková

Graphic design: Hedvika Marešová

Exhibition architecture: Viktorie Pánková