za-zrcadlem-through-the-looking-glass-skoda-bagnoli |exhibitions

Za zrcadlem / Through the Looking Glass - Marco Bagnoli & Vladimír Škoda

07 / 09 / 2021 - 26 / 09 / 2021
Cermak Eisenkraft, Pop Up Gallery Smetanovo nabrezi 4.
Curator: Miroslava Hajek
Authors: Miroslava Hajek, Tomáš Zapletal, Renata Vávrová
Texts for the exhibition: Miroslava Hajek, Jean-Pierre Luminet, Zdislav Šíma

The exhibition is held under the auspices of the Italian Cultural Institute and the French Institute in Prague.

Browse the exhibition catalogue

The Cermak Eisenkraft Gallery, located on the premises of the pop-up SmetanaQ gallery, continues its series of unique projects with Through the Looking Glass, an exhibition of works by two world-renowned contemporary artists, Marco Bagnoli (Italy) and Vladimír Škoda (Czech Republic / France).

In their work, they both deal with similar themes, mainly the idea of space-time and its reflection. The results of their effort, despite having several common features, are different. The instrument that unites and simultaneously makes their work different, is the way they use reflective surfaces. The relationship between their visual search could be interpreted as a meeting between two parallel memory tracks that at a certain point recognize each other and cross paths, despite not having been aware of each other before. However, it is interesting to note that the two artists began to use the reflecting surface almost at the same time, at the end of the 1980s, both getting there with different characteristic properties as their starting points. What unites them, though, is that they embarked on their journey through alchemy, not through kinetic art.

In his pursuit, Marco Bagnoli tries to uncover and reveal that what otherwise remains unobserved. His art helps us to recognize the complex relationships between the various possibilities of reality compared to how we can understand it. Through the medium of the mirrored dish, Bagnoli creates sequences of reciprocal reflections. The projections make magically appear memory-like shards of visions. Bagnoli’s main theme, however, remains his concept of space in relation to time.

Vladimír Škoda blends in his work the emotionality of manual activity with technology and scientific aesthetics. His use of mirrored surfaces strives to surpass the limits of human perception by exploring the possibilities of visualizing the invisible; searching for that which connects us to the set of parallel universes penetrating the multiple infinities of microcosm and macrocosm. His work approaches the question of our relationship with space, with movement, with the relativity of time.

Seeing the works of Marco Bagnoli and Vladimír Škoda together in one space, discovering and comparing their creative paths, convinces us not only of their importance for the history of art but it also makes us understand the importance of aesthetic investigation of the visual arts for better understanding of the universe, placing it on an equal level with science.

Entry to SmetanaQ is free throughout the duration of the exhibition.
All photos © Martin Polak