Luxurious spectacle – Man with the Burning Mane, Emil Filla (until 11 February, Kampa Museum)
Within the exhibition at Kampa Museum, Emil Filla is presented as the author of a luxurious, dreamlike reality, which abandons Cubist elements in which everything is broken down into geometrical shapes. In his surrealist period, we see more inspiration by antique mythology.
The artist celebrated his jubilee in the in 1930s, the halfway mark on his road through life. He opens up to new modernist currents and is accepted not only by the artistic community, as he is the chairman of the Mánes association, but also by professional critics.
What do Filla’s luxurious paintings say?
The exhibition reveals the artist’s core, his journeys to associations, a new reality. The luxurious paintings exude aggression, or on the contrary invite us to dream. The paintings are often superficial, playful, referring to a momentary idea.
Playing with the human body – the female body often as an elastic lump
Like Picasso, Emil Filla also found a certain means of depicting the female body, which abandoned the ideals of beauty and graceful proportions. It became a lump, a piece of organic matter in a cramped and cruel artistic expression. At the exhibition, you can see paintings full of giant feet, lumpy bodies with misaligned heads. Three words: expressive shape deformation.
It is inevitable, if the artist does not want to get stuck in a rut. Once in their life, they must take a risk, ease up on their signature and not be afraid to experiment. Emil Filla paid for his artistic boldness, being arrested and imprisoned in autumn 1939.
A walk through this exhibition, which is on from 27 October 2017 to 11 February 2017, will be a luxurious and new experience. You will see the artist’s striking expression into the unexpected. Sometimes you will shake your head, other times you will gaze in fascination and consternation. But one thing is certain: it will be unforgettable.
For authenticity, his works are complemented by paintings and statues from his contemporaries, such as Toyen, Jindřich Štýrský, František Muzika and Adolf Hoffmeister.
