Aleš Veselý: Retrospective – Alešville

The exhibition Aleš Veselý: Retrospective – Alešville is the first comprehensive retrospective dedicated to the sculptor Aleš Veselý (1935–2015), one of the key figures of Czech post-war art. Veselý stood out in particular for his monumental works in public spaces, both in the Czech Republic – such as the famous sculpture Gate of No Return (Prague-Bubny, 2015) – and abroad, for instance in the German cities of Bochum (1979) and Hamm (1980). In 1970, he acquired a former mill in Středokluky near Prague, where he built a unique sculptural studio conceived as a complex work of land art. Despite the repressions of the communist regime, it became a place of freedom where he developed his timeless visions of multi-ton sculptures. He placed sculpture models around the site, creating temporary installations and even making music with some of the sculptures. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, he became a well-respected professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. His most recent realisations include The Law of Irreversibility, created in 2015 and installed at the Jewish cemetery in Terezín. In the same year, he died prematurely, leaving behind an unfinished body of work. 

The word Alešville in the exhibition’s title comes from one of Veselý’s early drawings and reflects his deep longing to inhabit a world of vast scale. The exhibition in the Great Hall of the Trade Fair Palace will present his gradual transition from human-scale sculptures to monumental conceptions. Previously unknown drawings, prints, and paintings from the 1950s are complemented by expressive structural paintings and welded objects from the 1960s, such as the famous Usurper Chair (1964) and the seven-metre-high Kaddish, created in the hall of the Vítkovice Ironworks in Ostrava (1967–1968). 

Also on display will be Veselý’s works created in Středokluky, including crooked carts and compasses from wood and iron, as well as international commissions from the 1970s and 1980s. The exhibition also features drawings and models of unrealised projects intended for the desert, on which Veselý focused intensively from the 1990s on – Between Heaven and Earth, Kadesh Barnea Monument, and Mountain of Mountains – alongside realised works abroad in the Netherlands, Lithuania, and other countries.

Introductory artwork on the page: Aleš Veselý, Kaddish in Comenius Park in Ostrava, 1968, photo: Jan Svoboda
Venue: Great Hall of the Trade Fair Palace