magdalena jetelová

4. june 1946

Magdalena Jetelová is one of the prominent contemporary artists on the Czech as well as international art scene. The scope of her work is wide.  She is focused on interdisciplinary monumental projects always dedicated to a precisely chosen location/space. This allows her to create large-scale concepts at the intersection of land art, architecture, conceptual creation, free sculpture, light projection and photography.

The size of her works becomes the link between the artist's vision, the actual space and its transfer to the mental and sensory level. It also allows her to apply a wide range of materials and art techniques.

Magdalena Jetelová's exhibition at the Závodný Gallery in Mikulov does not intend to map her extensive oeuvre. Her works are presented together with those of Jiří Valenta, all have been created from 2000 and onwards and they come from the series called Implants. Wide digital reliefs were originally created as pilot projects for large-scale architectural realizations. Nevertheless, these reliefs themselves are visually very interesting, remotely reminding us of technical drawings in cadastral plans. Engraved script of position data attract viewer’s curiosity. Visual records of new architecture are created on black, white, and rusty hardwood boards with a purpose to be implanted into existing buildings.

Magdalena Jetelová has graduated of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1971. In the late 70's and in the first half of the 1980's she worked on large, roughly worked wooden objects (tables, chairs, stairs). In 1982, she designed an urban project called South Town. This architectural plan represent underground houses modulating and shaping the terrain above them creating forms of waves forming a new landscape. Between 1983 and 1985 a series of red signal smokes were created in the Prague nature reserve Šárka in order to demonstrate the disagreement with the Soviet occupation.

In 1985, Magdalena Jetelová decided to emigrate to Germany. Since 1992 she has been working on a series of laser light projects / Iceland project 1992, Atlantic Wall 1995, San Sebastian, 2003, Crossing King's Cross 1996 …/

Always attracted by experiments in the field of architecture, Magdalena Jetelová works in the early 90´s on side-specific installations called Domestication of the Pyramid in several European institutions / Vienna, Warsaw, Prague, Berlin /. Another group of noticeable projects is Translocations I and II in Hanover, Germany and Darmstadt.

Simultaneously with these large scale projects, Jetelová also works on smaller formats to create smoke paintings, carbon pictures, drawings, silverbaryt print and video footages.

Biography

Born 1946, Semily, Czechoslovakia

Studies:

1965-1971 Academy of Fine Arts, Prague

Stipends:

1967 Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milano

1985 City of Munich

1987 Institute of foreign affairs (IFA)

Awards:

2006 Lovis Corinth Award

1999 Jill Watson Award, Pittsburg

1997 Robert Jacobsen Prize, Museum Würth Foundation

1992 honorary member of Berlin Academy of Arts

1991 Max Lütze Prize, Stuttgart

1989 City of Darmstadt Art Prize

1988 Glockengasse Award, Köln

1985 Philip Morris Prize

Magdalena Jetelová lives in Munich, Düsseldorf and Prague