„Not that there wouldn’t be fun with me, but I’m a mad pessimist. I have doubts about everything. But when I create, I am the happiest person in the world.“
Vladimír Kopecký (*1931) was born in Svojanov near Pardubice. He studied at the High School of Glassmaking in Kamenický Šenov and The Glass School in Nový Bor. At the Academy of Applied Arts and Design in Prague, Vladimír studie dat Josef Kaplický’s studio of Monumental Painting and Glass where he merged the creation of glass art with various painting techniques. From 1990 to 2008, Kopecký worked as a professor at AAAD, where he led the Glass Studio. Even though his style may often be described as very agressive and uncompromising, there is an aspect of introverted calmness to it. Kopecký’s abstract paintings drawn on glass or inside it can often evoke ambiguous lyricisms that stroke and drain one’s soul, yet at the same time touch its feelings with a gentleness not always present in the materia of glass. Similarly to the „ugly glass“ esthetic, which he invented himself. Kopecký’s art is capable of capturing whole infinitudes within itself, the weightless and silent space where the passage of time evokes both anxiety, melancholy and desire.
Solo exhibitions (selection): 2017 “Geometry”, Galerie Kuzebauch, Prague (CZ) 2017 “Something third between chaos and law”, North Bohemian Gallery of Fine Arts in Litoměřice (CZ) 2016 “Dálky a póly”, Špilberk Castle (CZ) 2014 “Storm and Calm”, Museum Kampa, Prague (CZ) 2011/12 Vladimír Kopecký, Galerie Aspekt, Brno (CZ) 2011 Vladimír Kopecký, Galerie Havelka, Prague (CZ) 2007 Vladimír Kopecký, Galerie Aspekt, Brno (CZ) 2005 Vladimír Kopecký, Galerie Navrátil, Prague (CZ) 2004/05 Vladimír Kopecký: Paintings, Gallery of Modern Art Roudnice nad Labem (CZ) 2004 Vladimír Kopecký: Paintings and Objects, National Gallery, Prague (CZ) 2003/04 “Vladimír Kopecký: Až do morku duše”, Galerie Aspekt, Brno (CZ)
World exhibitions: Expo 1992, Sevilla (I) Expo 1967, Montreal (CAN) Expo 1958, Brusel (with Adriena Šimotová, František Burant) (B)
Awards: 2009 Award of the Ministry of Culture for contribution in the field of fine arts 1984 Glass 84´ in Japan, The Bridgestone Museum Prize, Tokyo, Japan 1958 Expo 58 Brusel, Gold Medal
Realization in Architecture (selection):
1994 Technology Centrum, Coburg
1992 Leonard Dobbs House, Long Island, USA
1992 Town-hall Toyama, Japan 1988/89 Konika Showroom, Tokio 1984 Assurance company Zwolsche Algemeene, Niuewegein, Holand 1974 Television transmitter Prague 1966 Cultural Center New Foundland, USA
Public collections (selection): National Gallery in Prague Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou East Bohemian Museum in Pardubice Prague City Gallery, Prague