Ilja Bílek – Rony Plesl – Petr Stanický

Petr Stanický, Factory building I, 2011 - Foto Lubomír Ančinec
Three Czech Craftsmen

Ilja Bílek – Rony Plesl – Petr Stanický

07.07.2012 - 07.10.2012

They come from the Czech Republic, they are professors and their artistic medium is glass. However, is it everything that unite them. Though the great glass tradition of their native country is the source of their inspiration each of them follow its own path in style, technology and content. If one looks at the history of the Bohemian glass, you will understand its artistic origin since in the world of art and design Czech glass has been an international trademark since long. Bohemian glass had already been a desirable export item before centuries and it was Czech artists who recognized the artistic expressiveness of the material in the fifties.

As professors Bílek, Plesl and Stanický pass on their skill also to the next generation: The works of their students have already been presented by the foundation in an own exhibition during the winter 2011/12 in the glass museum – now we introduce to you the craftsman behind that: Ilja Bílek has been managing since 1996 the glass studio of the Jan-Evangelista-Purkynĕ-University in Ústí nad Labem. His sculptures from glass are free of poses and visual effect-catching – with their concentrated geometric shape language they follow rather an own deeper logic. Despite the almost ascetic restraint in shape, colour and processing of the material from time to time Bílek’s works communicate a strong internal dynamics.

Rony Plesl has been since 2008 director of the glass studio of the Academy for Art, Architecture and Design in Prague as well as since 2011 director of the department for applied art. As an internationally popular and award-winning top designer he has been working since long together with big glass design firms – not until 2011 he was honoured in the Czech Republic as “Designer of the year“. Characteristic for his works series is the shape. It is clearly contoured and mostly bearing a refining grinding technology. Both together merge into a symbiosis that can only be realized with the medium glass.

Petr Stanický has been in charge of the glass atelier of the Tomas Bata University in Zlín since its foundation in the year 2008. For him glass is not an end in itself, but a medium in order to artistically reflect social themes and the relation between human beings and nature. With a free, casual shape language he combines glass also with metal or wood.

Haló – Ahoj, Ilja Bílek, Rony Plesl und Petr Stanický!

 

 Photos:

Rony Plesl, Samurai, 2011 – Photo Jaroslav Kviz

Petr Stanický, Factory building I, 2011 – Photo Lubomír Ančinec

Rony Plesl, Guard 1+2, 2010 – Photo Jaroslav Kviz

Ilja Bílek, Annäherung, 2010 – Photo Ilja Bílek