Jiří Kačer. Cores

(as part of the ‘Alternatives’ series)

20.3.2008 - 11.5.2008

in the Romanesque cellar spaces at 19 – 21 Husova St. Prague 1 – Old Town

‘Alternatives’, a loose programme of exhibitions staged in the Romanesque cellar spaces of the Czech Museum of Fine Arts, continues with ‘Cores’, a project presenting work by the sculptor Jiří Kačer (born 1952). His exhibition at the CMFA takes the form of an installation whose individual stone elements, taken from geological bore holes, are individualised by restrained interventions on the part of the sculptor. It is as if he is deliberately trying to cause doubt in the minds of viewers as to whether they are standing in front of a work of nature, the remains of some ancient civilisation or else or perhaps even rubbish discarded by ordinary human activity of the present day.

Concealed behind the natural and tranquil, almost retiring character of Kačer’s current form of expression there lies a long road that the followed to achieve his own personal sculptural language, one that does not overwhelm the viewer with grand, dynamic forms but gently vibrates with a complex surface modulation, thus challenging our senses to concentrate and immerse themselves in contemplation.

In 1970 Jiří Kačer left Prague to study at the celebrated Secondary Vocational School of Stonemasonry and Sculpture in Hořice in the north-eastern Podkrkonoší region of Bohemia. It provided him with a perfect knowledge of stone sculpting, especially work with sandstone. While at the school he also acquired the basic skills needed to restore stone sculpture. The greatest benefit he derived from the school, however, was the opportunity to experience at first-hand the sensuous tradition of Czech modern sculpture fostered by Josef Wagner, which had a fundamental influence on his artistic orientation.

In 1975 Jiří Kačer began his studies at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts. He arrived there at a time the Academy was feeling the impact of the repressive Czechoslovak regime that was then in power. In order to escape this depressing environment that merely worked from one official anniversary to another, Kačer transferred in 1977 to the stone sculpture restoring and copying studio headed by Antonín Nykl.
After graduating from the Academy, Kačer made a relief sculpture in 1982 that was laconically entitled Back. In this work the lifelong issue of his work emerged, albeit not yet fully sensed in the quietness of the situation. A figure lies in front of an area that is not a wall but infinity. The imprint of mystery also fascinated Kačer in his subsequent work, in which he returned fully to the material that he was most intrinsically suited to – stone. Initially it was sandy marlstone, the material of Přední Kopanina near Prague where he tirelessly organised informal sculpture symposiums. Over time, these ‘finds’ of human imprints in geological strata lost their anthropomorphic appearance. His stones became increasingly like the finds of a geopalaeontologist who, after carefully cleaning them, guesses at the actions that left their marks in the stone.

The 1990s brought another change that the casual observer did not necessarily even notice. Kačer’s stones once again declared their origin as a work of the human hand. They emerge from the depths of mythical time, and with their appearance they balance on the borderline between an object of nature and an artefact of man. It is seemingly not meant to be clear whether it is a stone, the memory of the earth’s age, or else a human action that fades away in nature. Human creativity is juxtaposed here with the creative power of nature, and at the same time it is subjected to nature’s laws of transformation and extinction. On this subject, the Czech Baroque sculptor Matyáš Braun’s figure of the hermit Onufrius with its weathered appearance is nowadays almost indistinguishable from a boulder; it continues to fascinate and excite us in just the same way as it did those who lived at the time it was first sculpted. The work of art is wrested from nature by the intense effort of human creativity, and in time nature takes this work of art back.

Over the past decade, Kačer’s work with stone has diversified considerably. Thanks to the fact that he has taken part in a number of sculpture symposiums in the Czech Republic and other countries, he has been able to work with many different types of stone. This has consequently brought a series of changes in the form of his sculptures, which no longer only evoke the torsos of various stone segments or mysterious stone objects of unknown civilisations but also the fossils of wooden fragments, reeds and blades of grass. We also witness the geometrically precise surfaces of what might have been ancient fabric and the monumental torsos of fossilised sailing vessels.

Having appeared in the creamy-white marlstone-walled Romanesque space, Kačer’s stone ‘rods’ make no clear declaration as to where they are from or how they were created. Perhaps not even the sculptor himself is completely sure as to which incision into the surface, which indication of a shape or polished surface is his own work and which are the marks left by the machine that tore this stone core out of the ground. This mysteriousness, this implicitness of the origin and reason behind these stone elements is exciting both for the sculptor and for the observer. Jiří Kačer’s ‘Cores’ sculpture installation seems to point to the mystery and implicitness of the world, while as the same time saying that mysteriousness and implicitness are not here to be brutally revealed. Instead, they tell us that the understanding of mystery and implicitness is a challenge to life.