Glass is a material that irritates most artists. For this reason many artists become overwhelmed by its features, others struggle with them, and it only very occasionally that you will find artists who simply work with them. They perceive glass as a raw material that can be used to record their vision of the world; they treat it with respect, albeit without emotion – realistically. This is the approach taken by artist Jakub Berdych (* 1953) who, in 1983, after several years working at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (UMPRUM) in Prague, decided to go out on his own. Since then he has made a name for himself as a sought-after restorer of historic interiors, and as a designer and glass artist. And that’s why he has also been working as a lecturer at the Department of Design at the Technical University in Liberec since 2003.
What connects Berdych’s work is the world around him and the tracks that humans leave behind them. He walks through the earth with his eyes open and with an open mind and literally recasts what he sees into glass, be it sculptures, bottles or vases. He is creative in the true sense of the word; he is exceptional in the art of brevity and being to the point, has a sense of hyperbole and contextual hide and seek. He can simply create ‘extraordinary ordinariness’ from glass, sometimes according to glass puritans, even showing disrespect for the material, indeed, with the same gusto as his fellow artists , who are a generation younger than he, for that matter.
Jakub Berdych is not a dreamer; he’s a glass realist. He knows what he himself can afford to do and what the material can do. Potential only makes sense for him if it is actually used. This is not cold rationale. In his vision of the world, there is still that ever-present, almost childlike pleasure of finding something for the first time, that feeling that every one of us would love keep within us. And thanks to his work, it’s possible for us to do so too, even if just for a while.
Pojítkem mezi Berdychovými díly je okolní svět a stopy člověka v něm. Prochází se po zemi s otevřenýma očima a myslí, doslova si jej přetavuje do skla, ať již v podobě plastik, lahví nebo váz. Je kreativní v pravém slova smyslu, výtečně ovládá umění zkratky a pointy, má smysl pro nadsázku a kontextuální hru na schovávanou. Dokáže prostě ze skla tvořit nevšední všednosti, někdy podle puritánů k materiálu až neuctivé, jak ostatně s gustem činí i jeho o generace mladší souputníci.
Jakub Berdych není snílek, ale sklorealista. Ví, co si může dovolit on, a co materiál. Potenciál má pro něj smysl jen tehdy, je-li skutečně využit. Není to ale studené racio. V jeho vidění světa je totiž neustále přítomna až dětská radost z prvního nalézání, jakou by si rád uchoval každý. A díky jeho dílům je to alespoň na chvíli možné i pro nás. PhDr. Petr Nový hlavní kurátor Muzea skla a bižuterie v Jablonci nad Nisou kurátor Galerie Kuzebauch
