In 1992, Michal Nesázal became the third laureate of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award, after Vladimír Kokolia and František Skála. His winning exhibition at the Václav Špála Gallery was progressive in its local context at the time — the interactive installation invited viewers and random passers-by at Národní třída to meet their own television images through a vista of the otherwise darkened shop window. At the same time the television images were being watched by a stuffed wolf. Other elements, such as a motorcycle, gorilla paws, and photographs of animals in contrast to luxury chandeliers, revolved around the theme of the lived reality and its (inanimate) image or reflection. This did not neglect the engaged undertone. Perhaps the only ‘classic’ part of the exhibition were drawings of a three-legged dog called Taco, who during Nesázel’s stay in Autstralia became his companion and perhaps even spiritual guide.
As part of the Jindřich’s model project, Nesázal reconstructed part of this original installation, but also indicated his way to a much more minimal expression — drawings led by insights into the quantum world and hard-to-describe layers of reality that the author creates every day.
Michal Nesázal (born 1963) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of Jiří Sopko in 1991. He studied at the University of Western Sydney, the Headland Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and participated in the Artist in Residence program in New York and Vermont. He is the author of precise and painterly canvases of dreamy landscapes and figures which have come from neat naive scenes into disturbing statements at the edge of the genre. These create some insights into other worlds full of mysterious and magical figures and landscapes. He treats his objects as kinds of small intimate worlds, creating a similar environment as an installation throughout the gallery. He worked with found materials, trinkets, toys, stuffed animals and various historical designs, being a member of the Pondělí (Monday) art group, which in the 1990s brought new conceptual and personal approaches to the art scene after the post-modern creation of the Tvrdohlaví (Stubborn) generation.
About Jindřich’s model project
Since 2019 is the year of the 30th Jindřich Chalupecký Award, the organisers decided to look back into the award’s distant past and remind the audience of some art projects from the first 20 years of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award. The selection is focused on works that in the context of their creation were particularly stimulating and progressive, yet at the same time promise an interesting reinterpretation in their current context.
