Shapes: Venus
Shapes: Venus is an ambitious project of the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art and its Ladislav Sutnar Gallery that honored the work and legacy of Pilsen’s native Ladislav Sutnar. It took place in 2022.
The project consisted of three events:
- Shapes: Venus exhibition / Ladislav Sutnar Gallery
- Hybrid conference and official open call for students of art universities / Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art
- Exhibition presenting the open call outcomes / Incubator Gallery, Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art
The exhibition “Shapes: Venus” at the Ladislav Sutnar Gallery brought together artworks that reflected on the well-known 1960’s and ‘70’s paintings of Sutnar. Students from Sutnar Faculty´s studios of Photography, Fashion Design and Metal and Jewelry Design, displayed their work alongside typography designs from students of Steven Heller at the School of Visual Arts, NYC, and never before shown original artworks of Ladislav Sutnar: photographic materials, paintings, sketches and designs.
A hybrid conference on the subject of the Venus paintings then brought together experts on the oeuvre of Ladislav Sutnar, including: Caitlin Condell, Cynthia Trope, Steven Heller, Tomáš Vlček, and others. The conference also served as the announcement of an open call to reflect on the paintings of Sutnar. The international open call invited students to explore the nooks and crannies of Ladislav Sutnar’s Venus paintings, their content, source materials, photography, sketches and drawings, work methodology, geometry, pallet, the artist’s formal approach, painting technique, titles, atmosphere, the celebration of the young, the painting’s envisioned idea of perfection; as well as to critically respond to them from theoretical perspectives, which can include: art history, art criticism, social history, feminism, gender identity and representation, media studies, psychology, transcendentalism, etc.
Contributions to the “Shapes: Venus” open call were presented at the international student exhibition at the Incubator Gallery, and in a publication designed by Kristýna Fišerová and Rostislav Vaněk. This third and final part of the “Shapes: Venus” project included students from the University of Art and Design, Linz; Holon Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv; Haute École Louvain en Hainaut Mons, Belgium, Columbia College (department of Photography), Chicago, USA; and the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, Pilsen.
The “Shapes: Venus” project was curated by Jan Van Woensel.