Kolář Jiří 1914–2002

Untitled, 1967

collage, cardboard, frame, 30 × 21 cm, signed on the reverse by J. Kolář 67
Jiří Kolář was slowly coming to his most important procedures since the 1940s. From the beginning he applied the diary method. He collected motifs that and then used them when the idea matured. However, he invented most of his own techniques in the period from the late 1950s to the second half of the sixties. Their predecessors became confrontation, reportage and found collage, in which he arranged reproductions cut from magazines according to certain relationships and their associated rules. He once said that the word for him at a certain period ...it lost its original meaning and fell apart, because it had been misused. Then he realized, that letters or numbers could be used as a visual signs without any other content. So he created what he called obvious poetry, which he thought was any poetry that was not expressed in words. He was also always concerned with the blending of different eras of art history. He linked, for example, motifs of Baroque paintings with the paintings of the great masters of the 20th century. century. Principles that he developed in his written poetry, he also used in his visual expression. In doing so, he did not rely to a strict order, but he also naturally applied poetic imagination and playfulness.