Magdalena Jetelova – Light, Water, Mud and Wood
Domestication of a Pyramid
Magdalena Jetelova, a Czech installation artist/architect has a website. (Need to follow instruction to navigate this site and requires patience. Go to Global and visit Iceland then go to Pyramid and click the corners of the pyramid). She is an impressive and formidable figure who used to show at John Weber gallery in Soho in the late 80’s.
Go to this PLACE to see her old piece in a particular location. (The Royal Forest of Dean is situated on the English and South Wales border in the UK, 120 miles west of London,65 miles from Birmingham (via the M5), and 35 from Bristol to the centre of the Forest.)
“My sculptures go for the basics. I am interested in getting through to the essence, to reach the origins. That is why I am fascinated by the Middle Ages.”
Two pieces from Atlantic Wall, see this page (click to enlarge).
“Magdalena Jetelova’s show, Atlantic Wall, at Derry’s Orchard Gallery, consists of ten large black-and-white photographs of concrete bunkers on the Jutland coast – relics of Germany’s defence strategy of the second world war. Lasers are projected onto the constructions to form short textual phrases, descriptions of their significance, quoted from French philosopher Paul Virilio‘s book Bunker Archaeology. They look like documentary records of a performance/event, until one discovers that they were made with no audience. The final photographic product is the art work and we receive the theatricality of its construction second hand.” (Read more from Atlantic Wall).
10 photos of the Atlantic Wall from the German site are here
The Atlantic Wall, (ever heard of the Siegfried Line?), were huge fortifications made by Hitler during WW2 along the coast of the Atlantic. What does that knowledge change? How different is the spectator’s position? Now go a step further in the mythological aspects of the Atlantic Wall. And now, go for an informed review. How does your response to the work change as you discover the various layer? Does it necessarily get «better»? You don’t need a spoiler to make it a spoiler.
From Bubec, a Czech web page showing the process from material to its finish.
Then there was the devastating flood.
This rhino was saved but the Chair was lost. “A giant chair worth one million Czech crowns was swept away by the river, reads the headline in Pravo. The wooden chair was a unique work of art created by the well-known artist Magdalena Jetelova and was exhibited outside the Sovovy Mlyny Gallery as part of the riverside gallery’s collection. Unfortunately, the chair was not removed in time and Pravo carries a vivid photograph of the chair sweeping downstream in the middle of the river.”
(from here.)