Matyáš Chochola
Magma
Artist
Matyáš Chochola
(1986, Hradec Králové), Czech
Original Title
Magma
Date2020
Mediumphotographic print on baryta paper, original unique piece manipulated with asphalt and printing ink
Dimensions200 × 113 cm
Classificationsphotograph
Credit LineKunsthalle Praha
DescriptionMatyáš Chochola is a multifaceted artist whose work freely combines magical and technological elements, drawing attention to contemporary society’s loss of spiritual values. His eclectic work focuses on performative expression and spatial installations without adhering to a predetermined aesthetic; to the contrary, Chochola frequently draws on various historical styles, pursuing access to “altered states of consciousness”. Apart from gallery spaces, Chochola’s work is often situated in urban space. His artworks are defined by formal unorthodoxy and an ability to combine disparate elements, as well as by experimentation with materials and scales. Chochola combines post-internet trash aesthetics with different painting techniques, the wild aesthetics of the 1990s, and objects produced through experimentation with glasswork, as well as with found objects and fragments of technological artifacts which are rapidly becoming outdated. In his almost shamanic creative approach, he manages to smoothly blend contemporary symbols with the symbolisms of ancient cultures, which he sees as parallel worlds capable of mirroring contemporary problems. By evoking these historical cultures centred around spirituality and myth, Chochola’s work spotlights what the present-day world may be lacking or unsuccessfully searching for.
Magma (2020) is based on seven photographs captured by Vojtěch Veškrna during Chochola’s happening The Scent of Success (Prague City Gallery, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, 2020). The large prints contain traces of edits made by Chochola himself as part of another happening, during which he dragged the photographs through melted tar and pools of printer ink, thus adding a new “magmatic” dimension to their original artistic and documentary character. The images portray his typical performative creative process, which contains elements of both ritual and party, and is based on a seemingly hybrid fusion of dichotomies—such as profoundness and superficiality, spirituality and corporeality, gloss and grime, tribalism and modernity—through which Chochola thematizes the complex unity of omnipresent life forces and their revitalizing functions so essential for human society.
Matyáš Chochola (born 1986, Hradec Králová) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, in Vladimír Skrepl’s painting studio, graduating in 2014. During his studies, he spent time in the studios of visiting professors (Zbigniew Libera, Florian Pumhösl, the art group Gelitin). He also spent a semester in Rony Plesl’s glass studio at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in 2012, and subsequently, in 2013, in Thomas Zipp’s painting studio at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. Chochola is a laureate of the Václav Chad Award (2012), awarded as part of the Zlín Youth Salon, and the Jindřích Chalupecký Award (2016). In 2017, he attended the artist residency Residency Unlimited in New York City. He has exhibited at institutions such as the Gallery of Fine Art in Cheb (Telepresence of a Gasoline Warlock of the Digital Era and his Green-Brown Gown-Clad Marten in the Temple of Heavens During Late New Moon, 2015, with Lumír Hladík) the Grimmuseum in Berlin (Astral Dust Astral, 2015), the Last Tango Gallery in Zürich (Bing Bang Style, 2017, with Kristine Roepstroff), the PLATO gallery in Ostrava (Garden of the Future, 2018), the Spazio Cabinet in Milan (The Most Successful Couple of the Epoch, with Christian Jakowski), the Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové (History of the World, 2020), and the Gossamer Fog gallery in London (The Alchemist, 2021). In 2016, Chochola represented Czechia at Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art in Zürich.
Magma (2020) is based on seven photographs captured by Vojtěch Veškrna during Chochola’s happening The Scent of Success (Prague City Gallery, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, 2020). The large prints contain traces of edits made by Chochola himself as part of another happening, during which he dragged the photographs through melted tar and pools of printer ink, thus adding a new “magmatic” dimension to their original artistic and documentary character. The images portray his typical performative creative process, which contains elements of both ritual and party, and is based on a seemingly hybrid fusion of dichotomies—such as profoundness and superficiality, spirituality and corporeality, gloss and grime, tribalism and modernity—through which Chochola thematizes the complex unity of omnipresent life forces and their revitalizing functions so essential for human society.
Matyáš Chochola (born 1986, Hradec Králová) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, in Vladimír Skrepl’s painting studio, graduating in 2014. During his studies, he spent time in the studios of visiting professors (Zbigniew Libera, Florian Pumhösl, the art group Gelitin). He also spent a semester in Rony Plesl’s glass studio at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in 2012, and subsequently, in 2013, in Thomas Zipp’s painting studio at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. Chochola is a laureate of the Václav Chad Award (2012), awarded as part of the Zlín Youth Salon, and the Jindřích Chalupecký Award (2016). In 2017, he attended the artist residency Residency Unlimited in New York City. He has exhibited at institutions such as the Gallery of Fine Art in Cheb (Telepresence of a Gasoline Warlock of the Digital Era and his Green-Brown Gown-Clad Marten in the Temple of Heavens During Late New Moon, 2015, with Lumír Hladík) the Grimmuseum in Berlin (Astral Dust Astral, 2015), the Last Tango Gallery in Zürich (Bing Bang Style, 2017, with Kristine Roepstroff), the PLATO gallery in Ostrava (Garden of the Future, 2018), the Spazio Cabinet in Milan (The Most Successful Couple of the Epoch, with Christian Jakowski), the Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové (History of the World, 2020), and the Gossamer Fog gallery in London (The Alchemist, 2021). In 2016, Chochola represented Czechia at Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art in Zürich.
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