Michal Škoda: RESONANCE OR SPACE AS A THEME

South Bohemian sculptor, painter, photographer, and curator Michal Škoda (*1962) is one of the most remarkable and distinctive artists of the middle generation. Škoda's theme is space and the relationships within it. His objects, lying on the border between architecture and sculpture, deviate from known classificatory boxes.
In 1997, Michal Škoda received the 1st prize from the international jury in Passau in the Junge Kunst competition, and from 1993 to 1996, he participated in symposiums in Germany, the USA, and Japan. In addition to participating in joint exhibitions at home and abroad, he has presented independently at already two dozen exhibitions. His works are represented in the collections of the National Gallery in Prague, the Moravian Gallery in Brno, the Museum in Olomouc, and in foreign public and private art collections.

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The beginnings of Michal Škoda's artistic creation are linked to ceramics, but he soon switched to more or less sculptural methods, creating objects of minimalized forms made of plywood and MDF boards that attracted attention at exhibitions in the second half of the 1990s. He worked with basic geometric forms, their intersections, and variations, offering an almost endless series of variants. Gradually, he minimized the shapes of his objects down to a cube, a rectangular prism, and their segments, unifying the surface into a white area. Since the beginning, drawings have accompanied Škoda's spatial concepts, and this path leads to his current wall objects: he shifted from three-dimensional objects to works seemingly in a plane—his semi-spatial "boxes" are presented as traditional paintings on the wall, yet they escape into space and exist "in the interval between space and surface." Škoda refers to his artifacts as objects and intentionally leaves them untitled. Regardless of the form he seeks for his expression, although his work undergoes various transformations, his approach always retains something essentially personal: an architectural starting point and an engagement with space: the space itself becomes his theme.

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Vernissage May 4, 2006

"Since its inception last spring, the non-profit association Center for New Architecture has been attempting to contribute to the perception of architecture as a crossroad—and at the same time, a bond—of many artistic and technical fields and professions, to cultivate a critical debate about it—and to do so right here, with us, in Ostrava. Our past event presented several recent years of the international Archi-prix competition to the Ostrava public—offering a view of how those who are just entering its scene, namely students and young emerging architects, tackle the challenges of architecture."
"Today, we approach this topic from a completely different angle; our guest today is an artist, sculptor, painter, photographer, and currently the curator of the House of Art in České Budějovice: Michal Škoda. The author's search for the most precise expression has passed through various transformations, yet his approach always retains something inherently personal: that being an architectural starting point and an engagement with space: the space itself becomes his theme," said CNA secretary David Floryk in the introduction.

The theme of space and its formation is one that is very close to architects, therefore, the most competent person to introduce guests at the vernissage to the world of this thinking is undoubtedly an architect: In our case, it was Ing. arch. Radim Václavík, the chairman of CNA. In a few sentences, he expressed his joy that CNA has the opportunity to present Michal Škoda in Ostrava, whose works seem to touch and capture the very essence of architecture—pure space. He then spoke about how Škoda's drawings and objects personally resonate with him. "The ability to perceive space and find relationships within it—that is the language of architecture; the vibrations, resonance in space, searching for melody between tones. That which is common to all good architecture regardless of the time of its creation... A beautiful drawing does not equal a 'good house'; on the contrary, a good house equals a good drawing... It is something I seek daily in my work. I thank everyone who seeks it with me," Václavík stated.
"The work of Michal Škoda represents for us a specific connection between architecture, sculpture, and graphics. It creates space and relates geometric forms. I am glad that minimalism in art has also reached Northern Moravia," added architect Kamil Mrva, a member of the CNA council.