Běla Kolářová

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Běla Kolářová (born March 24, 1923 in Terezín as Běla Helclová, † April 12, 2010 in Prague ) was a Czech artist who was best known for her photographs and collages . Typical motifs of her photographs and components of her assemblages are everyday, seemingly insignificant things, often small objects that are carelessly picked up and thrown away. Her work shows elements of Neo-Dada and influences of constructivism .

Life

Běla Kolářová completed vocational training in 1941 and began working in a bookstore and printing company. After the company was closed by the German occupying forces in 1943, she worked in the Bata shoe factory in Zlín , and thus escaped being abducted for forced labor in Germany . In Zlín in 1944 she met Jiří Kolář , whom she married in 1949 and whose name she adopted. From 1952 to 1953 Jiří Kolář was imprisoned for nine months for a critical book manuscript until he was released soon after Stalin's death.

In 1956, Běla Kolářová fell ill with tuberculosis . During a long stay in a sanatorium , she began to take photos. She realized: “The whole world has already been photographed.” Her first works show photos of walks in the Prague districts of Vršovice , Žižkov and Vinohrady , but soon afterwards she switched to what remained for her as a motif within the already photographed world : the neglected things, household items, thrown combs and razor blades. In the early 1960s, in addition to photography, she began making collages and assemblages . In 1962 Kolářová took part for the first time in a group exhibition that took place at the Mánes Art Association in Prague. In 1966 she had her first solo exhibition in a gallery on Karlsplatz, curated by Ludmila Vachtová. After the crackdown on the Prague Spring (referred to as " normalization " in Czechoslovakia ) it was no longer able to exhibit. In 1977 her husband was one of the first to sign Charter 77 .

From 1978 to 1979 the couple spent a study visit to West Berlin , where Jiří Kolář was a scholarship holder of the DAAD artist program . In his absence, Jiří Kolář was convicted of subversive activities in the Czech Republic . After the government refused to return to the Czechoslovakia, they went into exile in Paris in 1980 . Běla Kolářová visited Prague in 1981 to settle family affairs, but was not allowed to return to Paris to see her husband until 1985. After the Velvet Revolution at the end of 1989, Kolářová began to visit Prague again. In 1999 she moved back to Prague from Paris.

Kolářová's works, photographs and assemblages can be found in the collections of the Prague National Gallery , the Museum of Applied Arts in Prague and the Paris Museum of Modern Art .

Exhibitions (selection)

Publications

  • Kolářová: Photographies 1956-1964 . Editions Revue K, Alfortville 1989, ISBN 2950204759 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Noemi Smolik: The ABC of the material world . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of September 9, 2008, p. 42.
  2. ^ Jiri Holy: Writers Under Siege: Czech Literature Since 1945 . Sussex Academic Press, 2011, ISBN 1845194403 , pp. 250f.
  3. ^ Entry by Jiří Kolář in the database of the DAAD's Berlin artist program .
  4. Bela Kolárová in the Veletržní Palace of the National Gallery in Prague, from January 27 to April 9, 2006. Jiří Valoch's catalog published by the National Gallery in Prague, Prague 2006, ISBN 978-80-70353240 .
  5. documenta 12 ( Memento of the original of July 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Kassel, from June 16 to September 23, 2007.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.documenta.de
  6. Gender Check ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the Museum of Modern Art (MUMOK) Vienna, from November 13, 2009 to February 14, 2010. Catalog published by König, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-86560-783-6 . Project website: gender-check.at  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mumok.at
  7. Bela Kolarova and Lucie Stahl in the Kölnischer Kunstverein, from April 14 to May 29, 2011.