artists

Jiří Skála

Jiří Skála is known for his playful and witty conceptualist approach to various social contexts and situations. He often employs participants in gamelike interactions in his work, or institutes subtle interventions creating objects that have only been minimally altered but which are no less effective in altering our own perspectives of the given situation. His recent work has focussed on the written word and inter-personal communication, for example, in his project Handwriting Exchange, an ongoing project, where Skala, and someone chosen from a completely different social and cultural background, become acquainted through a daily process of learning how to copy each other's handwriting.

Jiří Skála: Morals, Transcription, and the Czech Scene
Jan Mancuska, 2009 Jindrich Chalupecky Award Catalog, Nov. 2009
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Jiří Skála: A Simple Turn of the Screw
Emilie Renard, Umelec 4/2004
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I am a painter; but nobody believes me
Brigit Ziegler, Erste Bank Report Feb. 2007
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Born 1976 in Klatovy, lives and works in Prague. He studied from 1998-2003 at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of visual communication under J. David and in the graphics studio of V. Stratil, and at the post-graduate program at Palais de Tokyo, Paris from 2003-4. He is the co-founder of Etc. gallery in Prague. His work has been presented at such international exhibitions as the Tirena Biennale I (2001), Palais de Tokyo (2003) and the Prague Biennale II (2005, 2009), and the UBS Gallery in New York (2008). He is a co-founder of the Etc. Gallery in Prague, established in 2004, and a member of the PAS group, together with the artist Tomáš Vaněk and curator Vít Havranek. He is listed in the Younger than Jesus Artist Directory of young innovative international artists compiled by the New Museum in New York, and in November of 2009 was awarded the Jindřich Chalupecký Award for young artists in the Czech Republic by Vaclav Havel. He is currently assistant professor in the studio of conceptual art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.