Běla Kolářová
The Week Keeps Repeating Itself
Artist
Běla Kolářová
(1923, Terezín - 2010, Praha), Czech
Original Title
The Week Keeps Repeating Itself
Date1979
Mediumcollage and mixed media (make-up) on paper
Dimensions69 × 54 cm
Classificationscollages
Credit LineKunsthalle Praha
DescriptionBěla Kolářová was a prominent Czech artist and photographer. Although she largely conceived of her artistic practice as a private matter, Kolářová’s work is inseparable from the “second avantgarde” of the 1960s. Her approach was notable for its conceptual focus and intentional lack of a distinctive artistic style. Much like the work of other constructivism-influenced peers, her art thematized the creative process itself while also investigating the initial idea that shaped the final artwork. Hence, in contrast to a strictly constructivist approach, Kolářová’s art also shares an affinity with Neo-Dadaism and New Sensitivity, which adopt playful approaches to order and geometric structure. Kolářová’s unmistakable style is underpinned by an intimacy and authenticity, while the materials she uses relate to manual and domestic labour, cooking, and the stereotypically conceived woman’s world in general, imbuing it with a fundamentally feminist dimension. Some of the materials used in her works remain topical and innovative in the present day. Kolářová’s artistic journey started with photography, which she began exploring in the mid-1950s. Her initial subject matter consisted of banal objects and their fragments, arranged into geometric grids. Subsequently, she began experimenting with processing negatives in the darkroom, using techniques such as photograms, roentgenograms, artificial negatives, and light drawings. From here, her creative focus turned to collages and assemblages made out of mundane objects—for instance hair pins, makeup, snap fasteners, and pieces of kitchen waste. Kolářová‘s use of these objects in relation to questions regarding rational structure represented an innovative response to the constructivist and minimalist tendencies popular at the time. The composition of objects into a grid or a geometric composition is an integral feature of these works, but their originality stems from their disruption of order through chance, intuition, and humour, as well as from blending the public and private spheres. Such incorporation of chance and objects from the private, intimate sphere distinguish Kolářová from the international influences which shaped her work, such as Martial Raysse and the Zero Group. Kolářová made assemblages up until 1971, with several of these works representing a reaction to the challenging social and political situation in Czechoslovakia. During the 1970s, influenced by the contemporary trend of body art and by new understandings of corporeality and eroticism in art, Kolářová created large-scale drawings using makeup, as well as works incorporating body prints. Her works created between 1981 and 1985, when she was living alone in Prague, are generally marked by a more stereotypically “feminine” expression and contain autobiographical elements. Nevertheless, during this time she also produced a number of metaphorical, politically toned works. In the subsequent period of her oeuvre, Kolářová veered away from exclusively focusing on the themes of women’s life and identity, creating a series of collages in collaboration with her husband, Jiří Kolář. Her previous focus on images became replaced by text and its fragments. A pictorial orientation would return to her work in the following years, giving rise to humorous, colourful assemblages.
The collage The Week Keeps Repeating Itself (1979) was created in Berlin, where Kolářová accompanied her husband during a one-year stay associated with his DAAD scholarship. It consists of small paper sheets signifying two consecutive days in March. The wavy composition of the calendar pages is complemented by a set of original makeup sample cards for each day. In this piece, Kolářová drew on her cosmetic samplers and work with makeup from the 1960s, featured in her first solo exhibition, which took place at the Charles Square Gallery in 1966. However, it was not until the late 1970s and the 1980s that she would imbue such works with links to her own corporeality and with an intimate, journalistic dimension while simultaneously exploring new artistic techniques. As a result, this work conveys a much more relaxed feeling, stemming from its accentuation of chance and its liberation from the rigid structure of the minimalist grid. The vibrancy and colorfulness of the collage can also be linked to Kolářová’s exposure to the Western, consumerist world, which sparked an enchantment with the endless offering of products.
Běla Kolářová (1923, Terezín – 2010, Prague) became an integral figure of the experimental, neo-constructivist art circles during the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. Alongside her husband Jiří Kolář, they were founding members of the art group Křižovatka (Crossroads), active between 1963 and 1968. During the 1960s, Kolářová took part in several important group exhibitions, including Křižovatka (1964), Surrealism and Photography (1966-1967), and New Sensitivity (1968). In 1966, she had her first solo exhibition at the Charles Square Gallery. She also took part in the legendary 1969 exhibition Something Somewhere, held at the Václav Špála Gallery in Prague, where she exhibited a series of installations collectively titled What is Born and Dies Every Day, exploring different forms of eat art. Nevertheless, Kolářová continuously remained in the shadow of her husband, and was therefore tasked with looking after their collective financial wellbeing, consequently only making art in her free time. Following the suppression of the 1968 Prague Spring, she was banned from exhibiting, In 1975, she accompanied her husband to his exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 1979, she joined him on a year-long stay in West Berlin, where he had received a scholarship. While Kolář subsequently emigrated to Paris, Kolářová returned to Prague in order to save Kolář’s art collection and works, sending them to France bit by bit. She did not manage to receive a travel permit in 1985, after which she joined her husband in Paris. They would only return to the Czech Republic in 1999. After 1989, numerous retrospective exhibitions of Kolářová’s work were held in the Czech Republic and abroad. She achieved significant international acclaim following her 2007 presentation at Documenta 12 in Kassel, while exhibitions such as Transmissions: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960–1980 (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2014) and Making Space: Woman Artists and Postwar Abstraction (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017) further contextualized her practice within the international art scene. Kolářová’s work is currently included in the collections of many Czech institutions, as well as in the collections of international institutions such as the Tate Modern in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The collage The Week Keeps Repeating Itself (1979) was created in Berlin, where Kolářová accompanied her husband during a one-year stay associated with his DAAD scholarship. It consists of small paper sheets signifying two consecutive days in March. The wavy composition of the calendar pages is complemented by a set of original makeup sample cards for each day. In this piece, Kolářová drew on her cosmetic samplers and work with makeup from the 1960s, featured in her first solo exhibition, which took place at the Charles Square Gallery in 1966. However, it was not until the late 1970s and the 1980s that she would imbue such works with links to her own corporeality and with an intimate, journalistic dimension while simultaneously exploring new artistic techniques. As a result, this work conveys a much more relaxed feeling, stemming from its accentuation of chance and its liberation from the rigid structure of the minimalist grid. The vibrancy and colorfulness of the collage can also be linked to Kolářová’s exposure to the Western, consumerist world, which sparked an enchantment with the endless offering of products.
Běla Kolářová (1923, Terezín – 2010, Prague) became an integral figure of the experimental, neo-constructivist art circles during the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. Alongside her husband Jiří Kolář, they were founding members of the art group Křižovatka (Crossroads), active between 1963 and 1968. During the 1960s, Kolářová took part in several important group exhibitions, including Křižovatka (1964), Surrealism and Photography (1966-1967), and New Sensitivity (1968). In 1966, she had her first solo exhibition at the Charles Square Gallery. She also took part in the legendary 1969 exhibition Something Somewhere, held at the Václav Špála Gallery in Prague, where she exhibited a series of installations collectively titled What is Born and Dies Every Day, exploring different forms of eat art. Nevertheless, Kolářová continuously remained in the shadow of her husband, and was therefore tasked with looking after their collective financial wellbeing, consequently only making art in her free time. Following the suppression of the 1968 Prague Spring, she was banned from exhibiting, In 1975, she accompanied her husband to his exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 1979, she joined him on a year-long stay in West Berlin, where he had received a scholarship. While Kolář subsequently emigrated to Paris, Kolářová returned to Prague in order to save Kolář’s art collection and works, sending them to France bit by bit. She did not manage to receive a travel permit in 1985, after which she joined her husband in Paris. They would only return to the Czech Republic in 1999. After 1989, numerous retrospective exhibitions of Kolářová’s work were held in the Czech Republic and abroad. She achieved significant international acclaim following her 2007 presentation at Documenta 12 in Kassel, while exhibitions such as Transmissions: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960–1980 (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2014) and Making Space: Woman Artists and Postwar Abstraction (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017) further contextualized her practice within the international art scene. Kolářová’s work is currently included in the collections of many Czech institutions, as well as in the collections of international institutions such as the Tate Modern in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
