Zorka Ságlová

Zorka Ságlová is one of the most inspiring and unmissable authors of the second half of the 20th century thanks to her innovative and original work. We can only fully observe and evaluate her work in hindsight, because between 1970 and 1988 her exhibitions were banned by the establishment of the time.

The reason for the ban was her underground activities in connection with the music groups The Plastic People of the Universe and The Primitives Group, in which the artist's brother, Ivan "Magor" Jirous, was also active, but above all she was outraged by an exhibition entitled Somewhere Something at the Václav Špála Gallery, held in Prague in 1969. The renowned institution displayed bales of straw and hay, which was perceived as a dehumanizing act in this elite space.

The forced isolation, however, paradoxically brought Zorka creative freedom. The focus and sheer authenticity of the individual art cycles, her strong imagination, playfulness and manual dexterity (1966 graduation from the textile studio of Antonín Kybal, VŠUP), helped to make her work systematic and coherent, yet solitary, intimate, pure and sometimes provocative in many aspects. The earthy form of being and creative thinking certainly stemmed from her relationship with Jan Ságl, who was her soulmate and intellectual partner and consistently carried out photographic documentation of her realisations.

In the early 1960s, works influenced by Informel were created. The structure of thick layers of paint and found objects turns into regular geometric structuring in the mid-1960s, the peak of this stage can be seen in large-scale monochrome reliefs. In parallel, land-art projects are created, which Zorka Ságlová realizes through intimate happenings with a group of her close friends. The static form of a land-art exhibition project is transformed into a creative happening with the possibility of input and intervention into the final form of the work (Throwing Balls into the Bořín Pond in Prague, 1969, Hay-Straw, 1969, Pocta gustav Obermanovi, 1970, Laying the Plints at Sudoměra, 1970, Pocta Fafejtovi, 1972).

In the 1970s, in the seclusion of her studio, she returned to laborious textile work, producing several large-scale tapestries. Through their creation, she discovered the rabbit motif, a recurring motif in tapestry production in Europe as early as the Middle Ages. The rabbit becomes a symbol of many realisations between 1979-2000, Zorka Ságlová discovers parallels of this symbol in the history of art in different cultures. Very specific is the Jin-Yin series 1994-1995, in which the motif of the rabbit is transformed in terms of meaning and visuals to the form of a demonic creature.

In the Animals series, drawings of animals are reduced to simplified characters that evoke children's drawings. Similarities to children's drawings can also be found in the Landscapes cycles of the 1990s. After 1994, a remarkable series of works of overpainting on damask was created. The structure of the damask fabric creates a repeating geometrized plastic pattern, which is partially covered by the overpainting. The beautiful structural works of the Sheilas series, 1998-2001, are among the highlights of the artist's oeuvre.

In recent years, there has been much talk of so-called feminine art. I think it would be a mistake to associate Zorka Saglova's work with feminist and gender aspirations. She was an outspoken artist with a high degree of self-reflection who expressed herself in certain positions with materials or techniques traditionally attributed to women, but the context of her work clearly goes beyond this fashionable hierarchization.