Vladimír Boudník

Plates to Vladimír Boudník

Vladimír Boudník (born March 17, 1924 in Prague ; † December 5, 1968 there ) was a Czech painter and graphic artist.

life and work

Boudník did an apprenticeship as a toolmaker and during World War II he was posted to Nazi forced labor , an experience that led to lifelong trauma. After the war he graduated from the state graphic school. He worked at ČKD Vysočany, first in advertising, later as a toolmaker and machine draftsman.

Following Jackson Pollock's ideas , he tried to surpass them at the same time and wrote three manifestos of "explosionalism". He concentrated his artistic work on working with dies and presses; his preferred materials were metals, which he worked mechanically and chemically.

Boudník developed unusual and original techniques, such as B. Magnetic graphics. He had spread metal shavings on sheets of sheet iron and arranged them in magnetic field lines with a magnet, then fixed them with varnish, rubbed them with paint and made graphics with them.

For his structural graphics he used sand, string or scraps of fabric in the same way. In the spirit of his explosiveism, whose three manifestos he constantly distributed in the Czech Republic and abroad, he had also created his works at happenings in the streets of Prague. To the astonishment of passers-by, he has transformed random stains like chipped plaster into abstract drawings on the walls of the shabby houses in the periphery.

He did not sell his graphic sheets, but gave away hundreds of them to his friends from the Prague underground or his work colleagues. In the cafeteria of the factory where he had worked he also organized his first exhibition, one of the few that took place during his lifetime.

Boudník committed suicide in 1968 at the age of 44.

Boudník was close friends with the writer Bohumil Hrabal , who memorialized him in various literary texts, for example in The Gentle Barbarian , The Dandy in a Locksmith's Suit (in the Life Without Tuxedo Collection ) or in the trilogy Weddings in the House (especially in the second and third part Vita nuova and I thought of the golden times ).

Web links

Commons : Vladimír Boudník  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• http://www.tea-art.cz/galerie/boudnik/boudnik.htm