Trees grow from the sky is the name of the project that glass artist Rony Plesl presented on the occasion of last year’s Venice Biennale, and through which he moved from the role of designer closer to the world of visual arts. From this month, these works can be seen in Prague’s Museu Kampa, where the exhibition of the same name will last until July 2. It is supplemented by the author’s other works from recent years.
An entire room in Kampa is dedicated to the Venetian project. Last year, Rony Plesl placed three two-meter “crystal trees”, that is, luminous, translucent, vertical monoliths made of glass, in the nave of the local church. They weigh around 600 kilograms and their surface forms the imprint of the bark of an eighty-year-old oak tree from the North Bohemian forests. In the church, they referred to the location of the altar pillars.
The last, fourth “tree” was made of emerald-bright uranium glass, which has been used in Bohemia since the Baroque period, and placed on the ground. Its “bark” was covered by a bas-relief of the body of Jesus Christ. The connection refers to the Franciscan thesis of the closeness of man to nature, the horizontal tree placed near the altar symbolizes the body and intersects an imaginary landscape made up of vertical trees, the organizers explain.
The installation Trees grow from the sky, as presented by Rony Plesl last year in a Venetian church. | Photo: Petr Krejčí
All these works from the biennial, which are now on display at Museum Kampa, were created by Rony Plesl using a special sculptural technique of melting glass. The process, in some respects close to bronze casting, was perfected by glass master Jiří Šín for 12 years. “Simply put, until now you’ve sintered individual pieces of glass, which has huge limitations in terms of shape, size and so on. But this is a completely different technology, where hot glass flows into a closed mold and we no longer need to have one plane,” described Played for Czech Television.
The curator of the Prague exhibition is gallerist Lucie Drdová, who was also signed to the project for the Venice Biennale. It was part of the official Collateral Events program section. The crystal trees were located in the Renaissance church of Santa Maria della Visitazione, where they were seen by almost 146,000 people from last April to November. For example, the Financial Times ranked The dance exhibition is one that visitors should not miss.
In the Czech Republic, crystal trees were already presented by the České Budějovice House of Art last year. They now occupy one room in Museu Kampa. The remaining ones were occupied by Plesl’s work from recent years: crystal objects, often reminiscent of wild rose flowers in shape, long stems with sharp thorns, fruits or tree roots, all larger than life size. Some have erotic connotations, according to the organizers, the artist was looking for a connection between the life of a flower and female beauty.
On the first floor, visitors can see a set of Plesl’s crystal axes clamped in hexagonal blocks or hammers on shelves and in display cases. “They are an expression of human intervention in nature and the unceasing effort to subdue it,” reads the accompanying text, according to which “the collection of tools and work objects reports on the need for ritual, harmony with the world we live in, and the legacy we wish to leave.”
Everything is complemented by charcoal drawings on perforated paper, which the author presents to the public for the first time. The exhibition culminates on the terrace of the museum. There hangs a radiant rose made of the same uranium glass as the horizontal tree in Venice.
The 58-year-old native of Jablonec and head of the glass studio at the Prague University of Applied Arts Rona Plesl has a career spanning almost four decades, until now he was better known in the world of design. In recent years, he collaborated with the Rückl company, the Bernard and Pilsner Urquell breweries, or the Sahm manufacturer, for which he designed drinking glass.
The Venice project opened the way for him to the world of visual arts. “I’m finally going back to what I’ve wanted to do since I was fifteen. I want to withdraw from the world of design and be a glassblower who broke into the free arts. Similar to Roni Horn, Václav Cígler or Vladimír Kopecký,” he said Plesl last year for the magazine Proc ne?!, which is a supplement to Hospodářské noviny.
According to them, the total budget of the Venetian project, including the rent of the church for eight months, was around 12 million crowns, which was contributed by the collector Roman Pilíšek or the PPF Foundation, which provided five million crowns.
