Untitled

In the 1970s, Czech artist Ji?í Kovanda created a series of conceptual and performative actions in public space that were deliberately casual and inconspicuous and thus hard to distinguish from everyday life. In his later sculptural works, Kovanda also worked with simplicity and reduction. This untitled work of 1991 is composed of found materials which create regular geometrical shapes. This simply constructed work is made of seven wooden squares and right angles in different sizes and with black-and-white plastic sheets screwed on to them. Clear traces of physical work and of the materials used remain. The aesthetic aspects of artworks and fine details in workmanship are not what interests Kovanda, and he himself calls this way of working an “idiosyncratic ironic minimalism.” The work resists any mythical notions of the role of the artist and of artistic processes. Although Kovanda did make a clearly defined object in this work, it is not intended as a grand artistic gesture with a hidden message, but rather an ironic manipulation of simple everyday materials. Kovanda says that his aim is to “open up for these everyday objects, everyday situations, and everyday environments for beholders.”