BENEDIKT TOLAR – REKONSTRUKCE STŘECHY

„To me, the sounds of the angle grinder and of the eccentric cutter are a form of meditation, a drawn-out Om …“ BT

The creative wellspring of Benedikt Tolar is fed by his incessant observation of reality. Things may be too mundane for most people to give them their attention, but for him, they hold the promise of future artefacts. It was thus that ‚recycling‘ became front and center of Benedikt Tolar’s work, gradually enhanced by environmental awareness. Deploying his trademark quaint sense of humor, Tolar responds to our time, its abundance of material and dearth of green. By fusing seemingly incongruous objects, he creates contexts that are unexpected – often also to himself. The subject matter will frequently emerge only after the fact, and derive from the material itself, its characteristics, shape, and color palette. The artist frequently loses control over the creative process; in a reversal of roles, it is the material which steers its author along the road.
The overarching principle embodied in all of Tolar’s work is that of more or less controlled chance. The artist keeps filling his studio with found items or items procured at the scrapyard; under his hands, they become duchampesque ready-made objects. Tolar is drawn to the rawness of objects and often seeks to preserve as much of their pristine state as possible. At the same time, if he sees fit, he will deploy sophisticated artistic methods, drawing upon his consummate craftsmanship and excellent command of technique. The title of the exhibition, „Roof Reconstruction“, points to the core content on display as well as to the fundamental role which car roofs have played in Tolar’s oeuvre, but also cheekily references the artist’s current creative circumstances: upcoming roof repairs are forcing him to temporarily move out of his studio – not an easy endeavor, as it is crammed with work in progress. The exhibition showcases older pieces alongside the artist’s latest output which, much in line with his creative process, often balances the fine line of (in-)completion. Capturing the exact moment when a piece is finished is a sophisticated exercise and may require that the work-in-progress be temporarily set aside, or result in a later makeover of things that had been deemed complete. Again, reality guides the artist along a certain path, on which his attention may however be drawn to details that in the end determine a dramatically different trajectory.
Aside from objects made from cut-off car roofs and hoods or satellite dishes, the exhibition features ancillary installations that afford the viewer a glimpse behind the scenes, following the sculptor into his studio and observing the way he works with the material, his technique, which for the most part remain hidden beneath the outward esthetics of the final work. Sometimes, the artist confines himself to reshaping the outlines of the given object and conserving its original surface. At other times, he embarks on a lengthy process of grinding to arrive at a multitude of layers which reveal unexpected combinations of colors and abstract shapes. In his quest to unearth the right color palette and surface structure, he also experiments with the use of coffee or salt water, electroforming, or indeed paint (which he applies following the simple principle of gravity, i.e., letting the paint flow down, or spread, or drip).
Benedikt Tolar (*1975 in Pilsen), whose artistic development was majorly inspired by sculptor Jindřich Zeithamml, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, attending the studios of Karel Nepraš and Vladimír Skrepl. His work is featured in the collections of the National Gallery in Prague, the Gallery of West Bohemia in Pilsen, or the Klatovy/Klenová Gallery, but also numerous private collections both Czech and foreign. He exhibits at home and abroad, and regularly participates in art festivals in the public space. He is head of the Sculpture and Space studio at the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen.

Kristýna Jirátová /
exhibition curator