Klára Horáčková - Layers

14/10/2022 – 25/11/2022 

Klára Horáčková’s glass art can be divided into two specific artistic approaches. The first is traditional, while the second is conceptual. Horáčková’s conceptual glass art breaks free of traditional notions of glass as a material that is closer to the world of design than experimental art. Which is why her works cannot be characterised by a single visual style or a single linear line of development. Rather, they are defined by experimentation that enables a wide scope of artistic expression. Horáčková’s conceptual projects (for example the kinetic installation Ghost in the Machine exhibited as part of the Signal Festival, or the mirror-based works comprising Inner Space presented in the Central Bohemian Regional Gallery) utilise the principles inherent in various external elements, which the artist then allows to become incorporated into her artworks. On the one hand, this represents both work with the architecture of a given exhibition space, and also with viewers themselves, whereby the works gain a kind of performance-based character – thus having the ability to transform the surrounding environment and to utilise reflections and motion as an inherent part of the works themselves.

The most recent set of art objects and vases by Klára Horáčková goes under the name of Vrstvy (Layers) and ties in to past series titled Evolution and Artificial Landscapes, which utilised the technologies of fusing and moulding prefabricated glass tubes. The principle of layering repeating elements, in this case in the form of icy greenish sheet glass, places these objects precisely on the threshold between art and design. On the one hand, the works fulfil the function of vases, on the other they represent abstract models filled with unusual architectural constructions.

And it is this very diversity of artistic expression by Klára Horáčková, along with an integration of conceptual and classical approaches, that creates a sense of rooted regularity amidst all the experimentation. Her projects represent the overlapping layers of flowing ideas, one after the other, always offering something original and unique. Klára Horáčková (born 1980) is a graduate of Vladimír Kopecký’s Glass Studio at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM), also working there, since 2011, as an expert assistant at the Rony Plesl Glass Studio. Aside from the Czech Republic, in recent years her works have also been displayed in locations such as London, Eindhoven, Paris, Venice and Lommel.