Richard Štipl (*1968) is one of the few independent Czech sculptors who deliberately steer clear of formal trends and experiments with materials and form. The fundamental human quest for the meaning of existence calls for a different approach—namely, the sum of experiences that sculpture has brought forth throughout time. Through the seemingly archaic form of relief, the artist draws on the symbolic systems of the past, modifying, altering, and reshaping them based on contemporary sensibilities and experience. This contrast between the seemingly old, the tried-and-true, and the contemporary—the foreign—is sculpturally unified in its pulsating and powerful contradiction, which ultimately amounts to the ritualistic repetition of eternal mistakes and the experience of their consequences.

Through each work, it is as if we were peering into eternity, which repeats itself cyclically and from which there is no reasonable way out. It is a skeptical commentary on being trapped in time and space, which at first appears as an open, free path beyond the horizon (youth) but, over time, transforms into an increasingly dense, oppressive labyrinth in which the pilgrim’s strength wanes and hope of finding the right path fades (old age). Time and space are depicted here as a progressive mental compression that transforms heroes into victims and humans into hunted animals. This repolarization is depicted as an aspect of collective experience in which mainstream society fails to find the right direction and ends up ensnared in a vicious infinity, commonly referred to as hell.

The fundamental starting point for Štipl’s reliefs are well-known iconographic situations from antiquity and Christianity, which established the cultural canon in the perception of the polarities of good and evil. The artist, however, points out that even at the time these works were created, they contained contradictions that have been smoothed over by time—contradictions that we, as cultural beings within civilization, no longer perceive, yet which are just as violent as the phenomena and events representing contemporary society. Here, we are shielded from the immediate shock of the direct message by a layer of aesthetic stylization associated with so-called beauty and the convention of empathy (Einfühlung). However, if we look at old art more closely—rather than schematically—we discover the degree of suffering it integrates and preserves as a constant life experience.

In his sculptural work, Richard Štipl reimagines fateful situations in which “the bread is broken.” These are updated moral tales in which a person, due to a chain of actions and poor decisions, loses his own identity, falls into a state of indebtedness (like Faust as conceived by Vladimír Just), and succumbs to dependence on external circumstances that enslave him and reduce him to ashes.

The work La Petit Mort, which gave the exhibition its title, captures the mystery of ambivalence associated with a state of ecstatic rapture. Religious ecstasy, it seems, is very close to practical eroticism and coitus. The entire history of culture teaches us that these are mutually exclusive polarities, one representing morality and the other sin. However, their physio-psychological similarity is so identical that, in many ways and in many human attempts to reconcile these mutually exclusive polarities, it leads to the formation of a kind of new religion in which human suffering would not stem from asceticism and self-denial, and would thus be eliminated and mitigated through newly established rituals. At the same time, however, social practice confirms that these movements succumb to sectarianism—and the violence that grows out of it—far more quickly and thoroughly than efforts to achieve salvation through collective or individual asceticism.

Through his work, Štipl touches upon the archetypal conflict in which life force and death take turns holding the reins within human existence, and we have no choice but to adapt to this reality, as Carl Gustav Jung proclaims. The first part of life is radically different from the second. The paradox is that we are not prepared for either of them. La Petit Mort is a “little death” in two senses. In alchemy, it refers to the attainment of a stage of initiation from which there is no turning back, as it transforms the individual’s consciousness. In a biological context, it is a slang term for the female orgasm, which evokes a dizzying ecstasy that one does not want to let go of and wishes would last forever.

Eternity is a relative concept. From an ethical perspective, it certainly takes on a different shape than from the perspective of human dreams and needs. What a person has once experienced as pleasure—even if it is distorted and, as a result, false—they wish to claim as their inalienable right. However, wanting something or longing for something is always ultimately linked to manifestations of violence and power. Understanding that the path to liberation from external instruments of manipulation is contingent upon renouncing the temptations and pleasures with which fate lures travelers on their journey through time often defies human nature. If this ideal conflicts with human pleasure, it will always encounter resistance from the majority and will always provoke people to break rules and laws.

The beings trapped in Štipl’s reliefs are his own alter egos, multiplied through rhizomatic reflection and cyclical repetition. We cannot rid ourselves of labyrinths, wandering, and moral collapses by erasing history and establishing a timeless realm of consumerism and the satisfaction of needs. Ultimately, we will discover that we are becoming modern-day slaves to something that, paradoxically, may be precisely the controlled and simultaneously conditioned distribution of pleasure. Neither asceticism alone nor pleasure alone leads to contentment and enlightenment. And in this, human experience constantly revolves and repeats itself.