TVAR JE PRÁZDNOTA, PRÁZDNOTA JE TVAR
Galerie moderního umění a bývalý augustiniánský klášter, Roudnice nad Labem

20. 2. 2020 – 23. 8. 2020

The principal form to depict this cyclical aspect is the circle, ageometric shape whose beginning and end are one and the same. For the chateau’s former Riding School Tomáš Polcar has assembled a monumental yet delicate site-specific installation featuring works created specifically for the exhibition. Three empty circles are mounted on the far wall of the gallery, while two horizontal lines running along the side walls are made of reliefs of hemispheres and segments of spheres of various sizes. Another sculpture named KYKLOS stands in front of the gallery.

The highpoint of Polcar’s exhibition is his installation in the former Augustinian monastery adjoining the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Roudnice nad Labem. The cloister is dominated by a line of filled and empty circles on the paved floor, and the circles are supplemented with sculptures from Polcar’s earlier ATOMOS cycle (2011), which is concerned with the development of the human foetus and equally with the atom as the basic building block of all matter. The final sculptures have been installed in the former chapter house, where Polcar has an installation made of concrete relics from the hexagonal lattice of his SOMA cycle (2012). It is here, in his installation for the cloister and the chapter house, that the interconnectedness of time, space and matter resonates in its purest and most exalted form. The objects installed in this empty space induce contemplative reflection on the essence of all existence as viewed throughout the legacy and tradition of all European philosophy.

Petra Mazáčová, 2020