Lot 240

Jan Švankmajer (1934) PHEASANT OVARY

The exhibit of an imaginative creature with the ability to reach out to the viewer and draw him into an inspiring dialogue is a representative example of one of the objects from Jan Švankmajer's so-called Kunstkamery. The artist's work is largely determined by the philosophy and creative practices of surrealism. His cinematic work is inseparably linked to his other artistic expressions, be it drawings, collages, frottage, objects or his unique experimentation with the perception of artworks through touch (tactile art). In this sense, his work is thus an embodiment of the synergistic effect or - to use Surrealist terminology - the universality of artistic expression. A leading representative of the Czech film and art scene of the last forty years, he entered the field of film in the 1960s, during the Czech New Wave, and made his first film, The Last Trick of Mr. Schwarcewallde and Mr. Edgar, in 1964. After that, he focused on short films, combining elements from puppetry, animation and feature film elements. He gained international attention in 1983 with a showcase of his films from the 1960s at the FIFA International Film Festival. In 1988 he made his first feature film, Something of Alice, which was a worldwide success. In the year of his 90th birthday, the exhibition DISEGNO INTERNO was held at the Central Bohemian Region Gallery GASK, which presented a cross-section of the life work of Jan Švankmajer and his wife Eva Švankmajerová (1940-2005) in an original concept.
Other characteristic features of the author include "co-creation with nature", the theme of terror and pleasure, funeral representation and magic. If the cultural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss argues that myth is not closed and can only be understood by bringing all its other interpretations into play, then Jan Švankmajer's work can also be seen as another version of myth. In this respect, the theme of collecting, for example, which accompanies Jan Švankmajer through his life, has the task of linking two temporal planes together in a moment of "reconciliation with the world". That is why, for example, the owned objects from the Mannerist period are not so much anchored historically as through the prism of imagination. The work on offer comes from the artist's studio.