Eva Koťátková
Unlearning the Body
Artist
Eva Koťátková
(1982, Praha), Czech
Original Title
Unlearning the Body
Date2016
Mediumcollage on paper
Dimensions29,7 × 21 cm
Classificationscollages
Credit LineKunsthalle Praha
DescriptionEva Koťátková frequently examines the role of the individual within society and the necessity of submitting to its normative rules. Her practice incorporates various mediums such as drawing, collage, objects, performance, installation, video, and sculpture. The fusion of these forms allows for a more complex treatment of the topics at hand. Although her approach is highly conceptual, Koťátková’s work communicates with the viewer in an intimate, playful, and emotional manner. She often explores questions of childhood, home, and everydayness, drawing on her personal memories, which are simultaneously both vivid and foggy, confronting them with the rational world of social rules and norms. Her early work examined the impact of this order on a child’s world, with many of her pieces containing elements related to the school environment. The pupils in her works represent a motif linking the communist era and the present day, thus relating to the lived experience of every individual. Childish imagination and the use of hand-crafted forms of expression linked to children’s activities (such as cutouts, gluing, drawing, sewing) and everyday life allow Koťátková to thematize problems related to contemporary society in a more emotional manner. This expression also highlights the importance of our senses and emotions, which can help us find positive values in difference.
This work is part of a series titled Unlearning the Body (2016) in which Koťátková portrays the emotions which an individual can feel in relation to institutions based on dictating normative rules of behavior such as schools, hospitals, psychiatric wards. The linking motif of the series is the figure of a girl whose upper body is attached to skeletal legs facing in the opposite way to her body. Her tied mouth and arms, attached to the floor via numerous ropes, imbue the piece with a scenographic and theatrical expression characteristic of Koťátková’s style.
Eva Koťátková (*1982, Prague) is an internationally renowned artist living and working in Prague. She studied in Vladimír Skrepl’s studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague from 2002 to 2007. During this time, she also spent time studying in Salzburg (International Summer Academy of Fine Arts), San Francisco (San Francisco Art Institute, New Genres Department), and Vienna (Akademie der Bildenden Künste). Between 2009 and 2015, she completed a doctorate at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. She is a laureate of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award, the Dorothea von Stetten Kunstpreis, and the Josef Hlávka Award. She has also been nominated for the Future Generation Art Prize and the international artist award of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco. She has exhibited at numerous prominent institutions worldwide; in 2015, her work was featured in the main exhibition of the 55th Venice Biennale, titled The Encyclopedia Palace and curated by Massimiliano Gioni. Koťátková has also had solo exhibitions at the Hangar Bicocca in Milan (2018) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (alongside Rachel Harrison; 2018). Her work is held in the collections of many prestigious institutions such as the New Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
This work is part of a series titled Unlearning the Body (2016) in which Koťátková portrays the emotions which an individual can feel in relation to institutions based on dictating normative rules of behavior such as schools, hospitals, psychiatric wards. The linking motif of the series is the figure of a girl whose upper body is attached to skeletal legs facing in the opposite way to her body. Her tied mouth and arms, attached to the floor via numerous ropes, imbue the piece with a scenographic and theatrical expression characteristic of Koťátková’s style.
Eva Koťátková (*1982, Prague) is an internationally renowned artist living and working in Prague. She studied in Vladimír Skrepl’s studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague from 2002 to 2007. During this time, she also spent time studying in Salzburg (International Summer Academy of Fine Arts), San Francisco (San Francisco Art Institute, New Genres Department), and Vienna (Akademie der Bildenden Künste). Between 2009 and 2015, she completed a doctorate at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. She is a laureate of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award, the Dorothea von Stetten Kunstpreis, and the Josef Hlávka Award. She has also been nominated for the Future Generation Art Prize and the international artist award of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco. She has exhibited at numerous prominent institutions worldwide; in 2015, her work was featured in the main exhibition of the 55th Venice Biennale, titled The Encyclopedia Palace and curated by Massimiliano Gioni. Koťátková has also had solo exhibitions at the Hangar Bicocca in Milan (2018) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (alongside Rachel Harrison; 2018). Her work is held in the collections of many prestigious institutions such as the New Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
Part of the same series/Part of the same series
