6/22/2019 – 11/3/2019

Caution: Contents Hot!

Tension, the scent of roses, and the glow of neon flash through the shimmer curtains. The reality on which red and white lights shine is deliberately hidden and uncovered at the same time. The sight through the window is blurred by the moving curtain, disrupting the feeling of intimacy, peace and security.

The Caution: Contents Hot! exhibition space has been deliberately conceived as a room with its own rhythm and specific atmosphere. Feelings of danger, internal tension, mutability, transience and intimacy are interpreted by visual means. There is tension arising among the artworks, visitors, their thoughts and feelings. The spectators thus find themselves in a space with an atmosphere different from the ambient environment as well as from the traditional museum space.

Both Vendulka Prchalová and Helena Todd have been working with glass for a long time in an unconventional way, combining it with other materials and media, thus violating the rather limited material-specific environments. The exhibition bears impact of reflections on materials and creative processes, their variability and continuity. Here, the process merges with its result, and finiteness with constant continuity. New objects and installations are determined, to a certain extent, by the previous experience, which is experimentally followed in the creation of further works. The process becomes an indispensable starting point and new works are its extension.

Vendulka Prchalová combines traditional craftsmanship with contemporary artistic approaches and new technologies (3D-printing, her own glass-processing technology, etc.). She complements glass installations and objects with untypical materials (e.g., kiln cast glass with calligraphic ink), thus emphasizing the process and transformation of artworks over time.

Helena Todd creates functional objects and art installations in which she experimentally combines glass with other materials (fabric, metal etc.). The resulting works are unique by their unconventional structures and atypical glass shapes. In addition to design, she is keen on making jewellery, concept clothing and cross-media possibilities of their presentation.

Alena Štěrbová is a curator and an art historian. She focuses on design and contemporary art and their communicating to the general public. She also critically examines the possibilities of presenting glass works of art inside and outside their material-specific context. She currently works for the Education Department of the National Gallery in Prague, where she is responsible for programs for the public.

Exhibition Curator: Alena Štěrbová
Project Manager: Alena Holubová
Czech Copy Editing: Jana Křížová
English Translation: EUFRAT Group, s. r. o., Plzeň (Tomáš Hausner, Connaire Haggan)

Architectural Design: Vendulka Prchalová, Helena Todd
Graphic Design: Igor Sabajev Lorok
Accompanying Programme: Mariana Dočekalová
Publicity: Jana Pelouchová
Installation: Arte Partner Prague, s. r. o., VÝSTAVNICTVÍ PRAHA, a.s.

Cooperation: Helena Musilová

Acknowledgements: The exhibition’s authors wish to express their gratitude to the artists for loaning the exhibits and for their kind help during the preparation of the exhibition, as well as to the other people, institutions and companies, namely the UMPRUM Praha, AGC Flat Glass Czech a.s., Jakub Čermák, Ivelina Marinova, Master & Master, s.r.o., Petr Medek, METAMORPHOSIS, s.r.o., Tomáš Navrátil, Miloš Věrný and Lenka Viková, for their technical support and help during the preparation of the exhibition.

Vendulka Prchalová

TEP

Heat, danger, tension. The moment when a curtain touches a glowing electric hotplate. Burning smell, smoke, and quickening heartbeat. Or… The temperature in the room is rising, the window is covered with a string curtain, motionless in muggy and sweltering weather. Red light of a neon banner dimly illuminates the interior of the room. The door opens slightly, sending a bright ray of light inside. Quickened heartbeat, danger, and tension.

TEP is a set of suspended, wall-hung, and free standing light objects combining  red neon lights and white string curtains. Objects react to and visually interpret the feelings of danger, tension, and sharpening of senses.

Helena Todd

Neon I, Neon II

The light objects of white neon represent abstracted shapes of tied bows and reflect contemplations of jewels in interiors and in space. The bent neon tubes are a reaction to intuitively shaped physical models. Inset to one another, they create the final, yet mutable, object.

Vendulka Prchalová

Gabbia

GABBIA is a processual site-specific installation created for the occasion of the exhibition Caution: Contents Hot!. The installation is a smooth continuation of the Stampa project. The process of liquid splashing on a kiln cast crystal glass object and then on a large-size transparent glass sheet takes place directly in the exhibition space. The kiln cast object is specifically designed to direct the scattered ink to a flat glass panel, creating a new graphic layer.

Helena Todd

Chandelier 0

CHANDELIER 0 is a four-branched light object raising from the concept of the interconnection and reinterpretation of a classical branched illuminator, which is inseparably connected with the chandelier-making tradition of both Czech and Italian environments. The chandelier is set into a new context defined by the sporty aesthetics of Pagani Huayra cars. Instead of crystal branches and cut glass pendants, the parts of the chandelier are made out of fuel line hoses, metal tubes with leather details, and complemented only with polished glass lenses.

Vendulka Prchalová

Lokomoce

Flower stand – a horse in motion. LOKOMOCE is an object consisting of a table of zoomorphic shapes and hand-blown opal glass. It represents the tension between and play with movement and standstill, an object and a table used for presenting flowers. The individual elements forming the legs of the table and its frame (or skeleton) are designed to allow creating an object reminiscent of any animal in motion.

As a part of the DMY international festival of design in Berlin, the object was included in the exhibition New Talent 2017.

Helena Todd

Put It On

The installation PUT IT ON represents an audio-visual contribution in the form of augmented reality creating new links between contents in physical and virtual environments. This dematerialized fashion show taking place on the boundary of different realities represents an ephemeral moment of visualizing the invisible and illustrates the intimate level of the installation. The project focuses on presenting author glass and metal clothes created for the occasion of the exhibition Caution: Contents Hot!.

Design: Helena Todd / Motion Design: Žil J Vostalová / Music: Haruomi Hosono

Vendulka Prchalová

Stampa

STAMPA is one of the series of processual objects created from kiln cast glass and calligraphic ink. Stampa, or print, searches for graphic echoes in three-dimensional space. Drops of black ink are falling on a kiln cast glass ball, splashing on a clear panel. They react to the surface, texture, and phase of the body they encounter. This action then defines the abstract print of the entire process, capturing at the same time a moment which is subject to its own rules and rhythm.

Helena Todd

Cocoon Vases

The vases form the COCOON VASES series are a combination of opal glass and  fibres of Lycra and mohair fabrics. The collection is loosely inspired by “unweaved” textile weave. The fibres of existing mohair fabrics were unweaved and then wound onto the bodies of the vases. The collection of vases is the first realization of the author combining glass and fabrics.

Vendulka Prchalová a Helena Todd

Urban Vibe

The installation URBAN VIBE loosely reflects the urban environment and represents a visual allusion to transformer station. Each part consists of hand-blown basic-shape components complemented with rubber O-rings which are then inserted into one another. Assembling them in various ways may create entirely new compositions in reaction to internal or external transformations. In the exhibition, the installation is illuminated by red and white neon lights reflecting on the surfaces of individual shapes or absorbed by crystal glass.

Vendulka Prchalová a Helena Todd

Urban Vibe

The origin of the collection of vases URBAN VIBE was a reaction to Vendulka Prchalová’s florist experience. Each part consists of hand-blown basic-shape components complemented with rubber O-rings which are then inserted into one another. Assembling the shapes in various ways may create entirely new vases as a reaction to specific flowers to be placed in them.