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Jan Kaláb |
Artist Jan Kaláb (1978), the last year’s graduate from the Prague Academy of Fine Arts, is probably the only graffiti artist in his own right in the Czech Republic. As in the rest of the “free world”, our country has witnessed the arrival and rise of anonymous street art including graffiti since the early 1990s. It is quite clear that the expressions of this genre are of varied quality, and the hierarchy of its creators is clearly determined. Kaláb, who signs his works as Point, managed to gradually achieve dominant and respected status on the street. He follows several rules as well as his striking talent, while the latter makes him significantly stand out in the graffiti-makers’ nation. He doesn’t paint on facades, giving preference to temporary constructions, suburbs, fencings, enclosures and permitted places. But he would be no graffiti artist if he avoided various illegal interventions into public space. He transferred his own tag into three-dimensional form as a polystyrene object executed in various color combinations. The resulting artifact, reminiscent of a small dragon, was situated on inaccessible spots on several objects in Prague. Many passers-by must have run into one of those alongside one of the main Prague communications. Also Kaláb’s other overlaps of the “traditional” graffiti are pretty remarkable. He, for example, covers sidewalk patches with pastels and pours color pigments into pools and cracks in asphalt. (Similarly, the Japanese artist Kenichiro Taniguchi lets the plastic in the cracks set, subsequently exhibiting the abstract reliefs as objects.) Kaláb’s stylized three-dimensional signatures “Point” can usually be found nearby subway entrances and the spaces below them. And even though the combination of a street artist and an Academy graduate may seem a bit absurd, Kaláb was perfectly capable of coping with his diploma. On the grounds of the National Gallery in Prague, he erected an object-maze which was legible as his own tag and, inside, presented live videos from various places around the globe where Kaláb had created his unofficial art. Kaláb also is probably the first graffiti artist in the Czech Republic to live on his activity. The desire for his work doesn’t only come from the fields of advertising and movie industry, but also from the nouveau-rich circles whose members are eager to have him decorate their dwellings. Lenka Lindaurová
Artworks of this author offered by Prague Art & Design
Jan Kaláb
* 1978, Prague
Education
2000-2002
AAAD, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, Prague
Sculpture department
prof. Jiří Beránek
2002-2006
Academy of Fine Arts, Prague
Drawing deparment
prof. Jitka Svobodová
Solo Exhibitions
2003 | Genesis
2007 | Intercity Praha-Berlin
2013 | Jan Kaláb: Point | Alternate Plan(e)s
Group Exhibitions
2001
Fragments 4
2002
Young Meat
Subculture
2003
Da Paintas
Forfeits
3. Zlínský salón mladých
2004
Objectivity
Ewerwanting Streets
Infiltration
2005
City of names
2006
Redbull Artbeat
Open
2007
5 + kk
Space for Intuition
