The ultimate recycler

František Skála was an avid recycler long before it became fashionable. Since the late 1970s, Skála has been following an unwavering path of transforming materials he finds in the forest and in trash cans into distinctive and witty works of art that are immediately recognizable as having his unique artistic stamp.

In his essay "Zen and the Art of Trash Picking," Skála wrote that scavenging, when done with inspiration, can be raised to an art form and, when done with devotion, can be a spiritual endeavor. This philosophy has guided his work for the past several decades, and visitors to the Galerie U Betlémské kaple, across from the Bethlehem Chapel in Old Town, will see a retrospective-style exhibition of nearly 50 mainly small-scale pieces from the 1980s and 1990s as well as several of later works.

Skála, born in 1956, is one of the best-known Czech contemporary artists, and he also has a strong international reputation. A founding member of the Tvrdohlaví (Stubborn Ones) art group - one of the first "nonofficial" groups allowed to exhibit in pre-revolutionary Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s - he was the second recipient of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award for young artists (in 1991), and in 1993 he represented his country at the Venice Biennale, to which he traveled on foot, filling the frames he had shipped empty to Venice with drawings created on the month-long journey.

Skála has a keen sense for combining materials offered up by nature with sundry discarded objects to create fresh meaning, often with a large dose of humor. In the center of the main exhibition room, there is one large piece amid the mostly tabletop-size and wall-hung sculptures. In Slugs on a Morel (1989), three blue-painted wooden slugs crawl up a morel mushroom fashioned from part of a tree, which seems to buckle under the weight of the gastropods. Anthropomorphic dead wood - one of Skála's trademarks - features in a range of leading and supporting roles. Often, viewers can only marvel at the highly suggestive pieces of wood he manages to scour from the forest floor.

Near the slugs sculpture are two wall-mounted groupings, likewise constructed entirely from found wood: Trophies (1994) and Erotic Trophies (2001). The first one is a group of nearly 50 smallish pieces of smoothed, rounded wood suggestive of animal skulls, arranged on the wall like a game hunter's proud display, some of the "trophy" heads sprouting little antlers made of pine and other twigs.

But Skála scores even bigger points for his hunting skills with Erotic Trophies. This smaller grouping, also arranged like hunters' trophies, is comprised of eight astoundingly anatomical pieces wood in a variety of phallic and vulval forms.

Also with minimal intervention from Skála, a weathered piece of wood resting on top of a crocheted doily recalls Brancusi's graceful abstracted Bird in Space. By simply opening his eyes to what exists all around us and letting his imagination see its inherent possibilities rather than casting or carving it into his predetermined vision, Skála forcefully manages to create pieces that get at the essence of his subjects. A grouping called Insects (1992) is created from six pieces of peeling wood resembling six bugs on their backs. Bird (1983) is a single piece of wood placed on a pedestal, perhaps resembling a hedgehog more than a winged creature.

Tree branches and stumps appear often in Skála's work, and it is also characteristic for this artist to use one natural material to refer to another. In Loaf, a piece of wood is carved into a form that resembles a loaf of bread or large potato, which rests on a wooden chest that is placed on an oval "rug" made of wood. In a piece titled Beyond the Clouds (1989), desiccated bread is carved into a cute seal that sits on rabbit-like legs rather than fins.

Dance of the Dead (1991), installed in the cellar of the gallery together with about a half-dozen other pieces, consists of a cylindrical form, like a tree trunk, made of old leather, filled with foam rubber, and topped with delicate intertwined wire forms that suggest a nocturnal dance of forest sprites. Also in the cellar, Hand Tools (1994) is four large pieces of foam rubber carved into the shape of Stone Age spear points and scrapers.

Several of Skála's objects glow with a warm-toned inner light, concealed behind a translucent leather skin, or having a flickering bulb mimicking flames. Glowing Touches (2001) is a radiant wooden psychoanalyst's couch with an anthropomorphic twig hovering menacingly over it.

One of the most remarkable experiences observing fellow visitors to this exhibition on a rainy Prague afternoon was hearing the animated discussions and spontaneous chuckles as viewers encountered different sculptures. It was clear that people were deriving a lot of genuine pleasure from Skála's works - something all too rare in art galleries.

A large part of the magic of Skála's art lies in how his humble sculptures of natural detritus and discarded manmade things continue to pulse with energy, humor and authenticity decades after their creation.

Mimi Fronczak Rogers can be reached at
Features@praguepost.com