An exhibition by Miroslava Klesalová is now open to the public

On Wednesday evening, March 5, we opened a new exhibition by visual artist Miroslava Klesalová titled Step from Darkness. The opening was attended by a number of guests from the cultural and social spheres, including curators, gallerists, and artists – among them several who had exhibited at Artium in previous years.

The exhibition presents two interconnected aspects of the artist’s practice – her characteristic textile objects and, newly, a cycle of small paintings created between 2021 and 2022. The dialogue between these two media forms the basis of the installation, which explores the relationship between personal experience, memory, and the structures of the surrounding world.

Guests were welcomed by Dana Dvořáková, Director of Communications at KKCG. She noted that Artium seeks each year to highlight a new thematic line within its program, one that reflects the values of the group.

“Artium is a space where, alongside exhibitions, concerts, festivals, and other cultural events take place. Each year we try to introduce a new curatorial line – after courage and innovation, this year we have chosen the theme of responsibility,” she said. She also emphasized that thanks to the generous support of its founders and patrons, the Komárek family, the space is open not only to KKCG employees and neighbors from Prague 9 but also to the wider public and the artistic community. “I am pleased to see many people from the art world among our guests today, including artists who have exhibited at Artium in the past,” she added.

The exhibition itself was introduced by its curator Barbora Kundračíková, who pointed to two different yet closely related dimensions of Klesalová’s work. “On the one hand, there are the sewn objects that recall the structure of fields and landscapes, particularly the foothills of the Šumava region in the former Sudetenland, where Mirka comes from and which she has long explored in her work,” she explained. The second part of the installation consists of small-scale paintings that, according to the curator, are more personal and were created even before the textile objects. “I never expected we would see them presented publicly, but in the end I’m glad we did. It turns out that conceptually they fit the project very well,” she said.

According to Kundračíková, both series reflect the artist’s interest in structure and order: “It is essentially a search for formal structures and a certain order in the world – between nature, the universe, and human society.”

In her remarks, Miroslava Klesalová spoke about the personal nature of the paintings and the process behind their creation. “These paintings are a very personal matter for me. They were created between 2021 and 2022, and for a long time I considered whether to show them publicly. In the end, however, I felt the time had come,” she told visitors.

The cycle emerged from intuitively recorded symbols and inner images that she noted down in her diary. “Each of these symbols has its own name and numerical code. I lived with these images for several years and became interested in the dialogue with color and form – whether the viewer remains only at their decorative surface or gives them time and discovers a deeper dynamic within them,” the artist explained.

The textile objects, which have brought Klesalová recognition on the contemporary art scene, are rooted in her long-standing relationship with the landscape of the Šumava foothills where she grew up. “It is a landscape I keep returning to, even though I have lived in Prague for twenty years. In these textile works, I focus primarily on shaping structures, orders, and forms,” she added.