Čestmír Suška – Backbone

A monumental wooden object resembling a broken trunk and an articulated skeletal structure permeates the space of the Žatec synagogue as the basic axis of the exhibition. Backbone here is not just the title of one work, but the principle that organizes the whole - linking individual works, historical architecture and urban space.

The work of Čestmír Suška has long oscillated between inside and outside, between solid matter and its disruption. The cut, perforation or decomposition of the material reveals its hidden structure and transforms the volume into an open system of relationships. This approach, developed across media from wood to glass to metal tanks, is one of the defining features of his work.

The installation in the synagogue works with both the vertical and the horizontal - with line winding through space like a body or a landscape. The individual objects, spread along this imaginary axis, create a tension between fragment and whole, between stability and decay.

The exhibition also extends into the public space of the city through the installation Abandoned Dwellings. The latter extends the theme of "spine" towards the urban and social context – as a reminder of structures that have lost their function but still bear the trace of human presence. In this way, the city becomes another body whose points of support are disappearing or transforming.

The Backbone exhibition links sacred space, sculptural object and urban landscape into a single whole. It shows structure as something that holds, but can also fall apart - and it is in this tension that the space for reinterpretation arises.