31 Aug 2011

dukan hourdequin presents Richard Stipl: Remembering Disasters

dukan hourdequin gallery is pleased to present Remembering Disasters, the first solo exhibition in France by Czech artist Richard Stipl (1968).

Richard Stipl's exhibition, Remembering Disasters, introduces a cross-section of the artist's sculptural work over the past ten years. This is not however a classic retrospective, the author continually reworks and regroups older installations into new configurations, that reflect the uniqueness of a specific installation site. The works become transformed by their dependence on the site but also on the artist's new creative intentions. Already present in the early series, Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart (the title taken from a book by an enlightened philosopher and theologian Jan Amos Comenius, 1631) from 2002 is an ongoing and ever changing dialog with the artist's own work. He ceaselessly searches and examines the work in different conditions and environments. This aspect is further accentuated by the self-reflective theme in the work – the self-portrait. The grimaced faces point to an older tradition of European art, not only to the famous heads of the Austrian sculptor Franz-Xaver Messerschmidt (1736-1783) but also to the caricature drawings by the French artist Charles Le Brun (1619-1690). The sculptures are made from beeswax, a material that has its own specific qualities, for example the typical reflection of light so apparent at first glance. The naturalistic polychrome gives the creative result another level of meaning. During that time, Stipl's works were mentioned in the wider context of contemporary sculpture, frequently in connection with the work of Ron Mueck. Most often however they appear in connection with the work of Jake and Dinos Chapman. Naturalism as well as references to popular culture (namely horror) is also characteristic for their work.

(…) A culmination of Stipl's most recent work is to be seen in the installation The Fall (2011). Bodies emerge from the wall only to be smashed to the hard ground as soon as their materialization is complete. Through a recognition of the whole, matter and soul loose their mystery, their meaning and soon turn into nothingness. In recent years, Stipl's work has acquired new meanings, is becoming more open, the iconography more refined, the artist's point of view more compact and from themes regarding his own individuality he arrives at universal questions about the world inhabited by him and also by us.

Otto M. Urban, Prague, May 2011

Richard Stipl was born in Sternberck (Czech Republic) in 1968. He graduated in 1992 from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. He currently lives and works in Prague.
He has recently exhibited in Decadence now! Visions of Excess curated by Otto M. Urban at the Rudolfinum Gallery (Prague).