Publications

HAĽÁK, Miroslav: Sein und Schrein. Zur Philosophie der Kunst Zbyněk Sekals. In: Zbyněk Sekal 100. Wien, Verlag für moderne Kunst 2023, S. 62-76.

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The work of Zbyněk Sekal (1923–1998) stands apart in many ways not only from Czech sculpture but also from sculpture worldwide. It grows out of the Central European modernist tradition, and its foundations touch upon principles characteristic of Eastern visual culture, particularly Japanese art. Few have succeeded in achieving such a focused expression of the fundamental values of our existence as Sekal did. Moreover, his artistic language exudes a hidden intimacy. We sense in it the personal, self-sufficient silence of seclusion, purified of any expectation of an external response.
Right from the start, Sekal’s fragile soul was struck by the trauma of the concentration camp—a raw experience of the dark side of humanity. In the fall of 1941, as an eighteen-year-old boy, he was captured by the Nazis, imprisoned at Pankrác, and then transferred to Terezín and Mauthausen. He did not return home until after the liberation in 1945, deeply shaken and mentally and physically exhausted. He wove the horrors of the camp into intimate sketches of emaciated figures and evocative faces desperately searching for their own identity. The distinctive fragility, existential weight, uncertainty, and yet firm belief in the spiritual dimension of humanity that radiate from these works remained present in Sekal’s art for the rest of his life. It is remarkable that, through the initial framework of his deepest traumatic experience, Sekal developed his sense of artistic and literary language with utter naturalness, so that over the years his ideas intersected in many respects with the theses of Heidegger’s phenomenology.
Through this framework, he connected the intellect, the personal realm, experience, and trauma with literary and philosophical sources, thereby presenting an exceptionally sensitive yet concise statement on the most profound questions of human existence and the passage of time. The exhibition at the Kampa Museum, organized to mark the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth, primarily showcases Sekal’s work created from the 1940s through 1970—that is, the period before the artist went into exile. It traces the key stages of Sekal’s creative journey, from drawings made in a concentration camp, through his early postwar works, to his first collages. The exhibition also highlights Sekal’s work as a translator and his book cover designs. Within the broader historical context, it emphasizes Zbyněk Sekal’s authentic relationships with his contemporaries, particularly Mikuláš Medek. These are highlighted both by Medek’s portrait of Zbyněk Sekal and by their correspondence.
An important milestone in the exhibition’s concept is represented by the works created during Sekal’s DAAD fellowship in Berlin (1969–1970), as it was there that the artist made the final decision to leave Czechoslovakia. He stayed briefly in Düsseldorf and settled permanently in Vienna in September 1970. He was forty-six years old, and the second phase of his life and artistic career began. In the exhibition, this phase is represented by a series of Sekal’s Schránky (Boxes), installed at the end of the exhibition as symbolic markers of the creative path the artist embarked upon in Vienna and pursued for twenty-eight years alongside his most important life partner, Christine.