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Industrial cathedral

Massive metal sculptures bloom in a former factory
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By Tony Ozuna
For The Prague Post
April 11th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Suška's oversize spheres and cylinders take on a spiritual beauty in the cavernous industrial space in Karlín.
There aren’t many artists today who strenuously work with their hands — for days, weeks, months — to create a sculpture. Not that this type of artist is a dying breed; they’ve just become invisible in contemporary art. So Čestmír Suška’s exhibition of sculptures in a sprawling former factory hall in Karlín is a refreshing aberration, and just in the nick of time for the full flowering of spring in Prague.
“Rusty Flowers” is a garden full of large spheres, even bigger cylinders and other assorted metal creations, the rustier the better. And they seem made for the vast industrial space — or perhaps the space was made for them.
Scraps are used for floor mosaics.
Best-known as the venue of Flash Art’s Prague Biennale, Karlín Hall is a stunning industrial space. Roughly the size of an airplane hangar, it was gutted just a few years ago, and is now being used more frequently for art shows.
Inside the hall, Suška’s works are divided into three main areas: On one side is the ball section, where nine of the 10 large spheres in the show are given the breathing room they need. All of the metal balls are carved with various patterns — spirals, ovals, triangles, even a kind of golf-ball pattern.
Čestmír Suška: Rusty Flowers

at Karlín Hall
Ends April 25. Thámova 14, Prague 8–Karlín.
Open daily 2–7 p.m.

In the central area of the hall, Suška uses the same method of patterning in his large cylinders — actually discarded brewery tanks — into which he has cut even more intricate designs. From a distance, the sculptures look very much at home in the factory hall, like statues of Jesus and saints in a Baroque church. But, unlike a church, or a museum for that matter, there is no one standing nearby to say, “Don’t touch!” There’s no need; Suška’s works seem built to withstand a world war.
Suška’s Bubec Sculpture Studio in Řeporyje, which he founded in 2000, has been described as an “industrial cathedral,” and his works create a similar effect in Karlín Hall. Getting up close to the large cylinders and looking inside and through them, one can appreciate their workmanship in a different way. And, at the right time of the day, the natural light filtering through the lacy patterns can be almost as inspiring as light streaming through the stained-glass windows of a church.
Suška cuts his patterns into the tanks using a plasma torch, and the waste metal is not discarded. The carved-out metal pieces coalesce in the third section of the show, at the back of the hall. Little squares of iron have been placed on the floor to form tilelike patterns. In all, there are four carpets of cutout metal waste, variously arranged to form flowers, squares, quadrangles and seashell-like formations.
Near the carpets is a smaller area in which Suška’s works on paper are displayed on gallery-style walls. There are also assorted metal pieces that just wouldn’t look right in the larger space, such as a sphere with wings and an egg. One of the best is a rearrangement on the floor of all the pieces cut from a sphere. This is complemented by a nearby print of the metal pieces.
The works on paper are like shadow images of the sculptures. Some look as if Suška just placed his rusted metal scraps onto thick white paper and, over time, let the moisture and rust create a print.
Suška is a member of the esteemed Czech art collective Tvrdohlaví (The Stubborn Ones), which has given him more than a few opportunities to live and work abroad as a guest artist. Interestingly, the concept of “Rusty Flowers” originally applied to only some of the works on exhibit, which he made in the United States in 2005, in the serene countryside of Vermont. These works probably looked out of place amid the pristine grassy knolls of New England. But, in the industrial spaces of Prague, in his Řeporyje studio and especially in Karlín Hall, they blossom.

Tony Ozuna can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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