Start up: Ondřej Filípek – Ligament 28. 5. 2019 – 1. 9. 2019

Within the Cartesian coordinate system, man is always standing at the center of the world, observing it. In his 1936 text The Natural World as a Philosophical Problem, Jan Patočka describe three possible movements in human life: the movement of the anchorage or acceptance we receive from others; the movement of the work and struggle by which we influence our present conditions, which we adapt to life; and the movement of breaking through or truth, which is our only activity not determined by our given situation. As described by Patočka, experienced movement is not a mere prospect of the consciousness – far more than that, it is a physical act.

The work of Ondřej Filípek (*1993) centers on the human figure surrounded by the ruins of our present day, which he tries to renew with the help of its long-buried relicts. This is done at places of interface – where the sculpture as a figure, a vertical creation resembling the human body, meets its base. Patočka speaks of physical awareness as an active deed: Through the figural sculpture and its situation within the context of the exhibition, Filípek attempts to demonstrate man’s radical connection to the state of things in which he is situated. The constructive principle of his exhibition thus resembles an attempt at finding one’s way in a world without fixed reference points. It is within this process that Filípek applies his strategy of bringing to life technology by using it in organic forms resembling the human body, placed within an industrial framework. Under the burden of technology’s ruination of human naturalness, Filípek again begins to build verticals, to reconstruct the natural human awareness lost within the web of postindustrial thinking in the world today.

During his time at the Academy of Fine Arts, Filípek studied sculpture, first under Jaroslav Róna and then under Lukáš Rittstein, graduating in 2018 from Vojtěch Míča’s Studio of Figural Sculptures and Medals. Past exhibitions include the group exhibitions Against Nature at the Trade Fair Palace and The Possibilities of Dialogue #1 at the Salm Palace.