Rony Plesl

Rony Plesl (1965) 

is one of the top internationally recognised artists in the field of glass sculpture. His works of art are represented in public and private collections in the Czech Republic and around the world. Since 2008, he has been the head of the Glass Studio at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, where he was appointed Professor of Design and Architecture in 2017. The exhibition presents six glass sculptures, five of which were created using the unique Vitrum Vivum technology. Rony Plesl was the first in the world to pioneer this technology, which enables the previously unfeasible casting of monumental glass sculptures, and presented it in a global context at the 59th International Biennale of Fine Arts in Venice, Italy, in 2022. However, his works are not only engaging from a technological point of view; he often works with timeless themes related to humanity itself. His works have intellectual depth and are emotionally and visually very suggestive and sophisticated. They reflect the author’s erudition and close relationship to history and art history. This is also evidenced by the very themes he chooses to work on – these are often classic tasks that have accompanied the history of art from the very beginning. Of the works presented, we can mention Memento Mori, very popular especially in the Baroque period as a reminder of the finitude of human life, or Métamorphose, which can refer both to the knowledge of historically formative literature (Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Kafka’s Metamorphosis) and the natural cycle of life, as well as to the work of Rony Plesl, which is based on transformations. The transformations, or perhaps better said, the temporality of the transformations themselves, are captured in an almost baroque-Caravaggio-like manner. It is as if the action stopped at a certain tense moment and at that exact moment it is presented to the viewer: Conestabile Madonna – a tree that has just been cut down with its annual rings exposed, instead of which we encounter the classic theme of the Madonna and Child. A theme that refers not to religion or a particular faith, but – as the artist himself says – to hope: "I don’t make religious art, I create things to remind people of the desire for hope, because we all need hope."