Jan Meisner was born in 1939 in Bratislava to Czech parents. After graduating from the VŠUMPRUM in Prague at professor Strnadel, he has worked as an artist on his own. In 1996 he moved to Zlín, Czech Republic. He took part in establishing Tomáš Baťa University and has worked there as a teacher until 2018. Come to the G18 gallery, where you will see his works from the past 75 years.
Exhibition Vernissage: 12. 2. 2020
Exhibition Duration: 13. 2. – 19. 3. 2020
Curator: Romana Veselá
The exhibition Reason versus feeling: Zlin Industrial Design 1918-1958 is a part of a large-scale joint project of the Faculty of Multimedia Communications of Tomas Bata University in Zlin, the National Technical Museum in Prague and the Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlin, mapping design in technical disciplines during the existence of Czechoslovakia.
The exhibition itself presents the theme of the beginning of industrial design not only through period exhibits and unique documents. Its innovative concept gives visitors a unique opportunity to try out new technologies such as augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) and experience the exhibition from a completely new perspective. Moreover, it takes place in two buildings – one part can be found in our gallery G18, the other part can be seen in the Regional Art Gallery in the 14th building of the Svit complex.
The dominant axis of the exhibition is the history of the Bata School of Art (1939-1949), on the grounds of which one of the icons of Zlin design was created during the war – the design of the MAS R50 turret lathe, the work of sculptor Vincenzo Makovský, created in collaboration with engineers and doctors studying occupational diseases. The introductory part of the exhibition therefore aims to place this machine in the broader context of the development of engineering production at Bata in the interwar period that preceded its creation. The continuity of the School of Art’s influence in the post-World War II period was maintained in particular by Zdeněk Kovář, one of its first graduates, a prominent designer and founder of design pedagogy in Czechoslovakia, through the activities of the Machine and Tool Shaping Department, founded in 1947. A significant part of the exhibition is dedicated to his personality, presenting the circumstances of the establishment of the specialised studio, his pioneering work in the field of ergonomic shaping of tool handles, as well as the complex development from the late 1940s until the end of the 1950s, when Zlin design celebrated a significant success at the 1958 World EXPO in Brussels.
Winning several Grand Prix was an important expression of recognition of the results of the twenty-year history of Zlin design, whose initial period was often marked by unfulfilled expectations and clashes between bold visions and complex realities. However, during this time, the pioneers of the “new profession of industrial design” in Zlin were able not only to avoid copying foreign models, as was the case at the beginning of the period under review, but also to come up with their own authentic concept, which was then practically applied in the form of concrete industrial products.
What is housing for us and how do designers perceive it? What questions do they ask themselves and what issues are they currently dealing with?
The Investigations of Housing exhibition presents the work of UTB Department of Multimedia Communications students that will lead you through an imaginary apartment. It is composed of three zones, each representing one stage of a human life. Childhood, puberty and adulthood are components of an ordinary life, housing and even our exhibition, which leads us to understanding how the structure and experiential content of design thinking are preceded by the conditions of the natural world. The exhibition reflects the transformation of our needs and interests in individual phases of life by means of objects and ideas of young designers. From the first piece of furniture to the children’s bedroom, toys and stories guides us through the world of students and their interests, possibilities of modern technology and “smart” households all the way to funereal design.
Exhibition Curator: Romana Veselá
Tradition and Sustainability in Design from the FMK studio
As suggested by the title, the exhibition presented investigations into tradition in the works of students from the Department of Multimedia Communication at Tomas Bata University in Zlin focuses on the theme of tradition and sustainability.
Tradition, in the context of art and design, has been a forbidden word until recently. Experience and skill handed down from generation to generation was eventually replaced by new technologies, approaches and thinking that did not reflect on the past. The result of this temporary discontinuity can be seen in society, in the landscape and in nature.
Today’s urgent need for sustainability can be understood as one of the results of interrupted traditions, as a general desire for duration and durability, or as renewal. The exhibition touches on traditional crafts and approaches and inspiration of folk motifs, but also on modern technology, the usefulness of waste materials as well as, e.g. ecological approaches in industrial production.
Gallery G18 is the first Czech institution to present a selection from the 16th annual international Biennial of Theater Poster. Posters created by graphic designers from 22 countries around the world will be on view in the exhibition, all thematically focused on theater. In the selection are found works from stars of world design such as Günter Rambow, Radovan Jenko, Istvan Orosz, Erich Brechbühl and Michel Bouvet.
Exhibition curator: Pavel Noga
The exhibition (In)visibe Patterns presented a successful Czech artistic couple living in New York – Kristýna and Marek Milde together with designer Petra Gupta Valentová. The vernissage of the exhibition, curated by Silvie Stanická, took place on 13. 3. 2019 at 18:00 at G18.
We Are What We Eat…
The project, whose initiator is the Department of Multimedia Communication of Tomas Bata University in Zlin (CZ) and cooperating institutions – the Deapertment of Furniture and Interior Design TU Zvolen (SK), Taipei Tech (TW), ad the University of Algarve (PT).
The title combines the significance of FOOD with the word PRINT, a link to modern digital printing technology. Two-dimensional and the most modern 3D. With a slight change in pronunciation, we can also hear the word FOOT and footprint, which one imprints into the space they occupy.
The FOODPRINT project responds to the unfinished, cyclical, “low-priced” nature of our relationship with food. It is not only sustenance, but also productive and reflexive. We want to explore all parts of the food chain (individually or comprehensively) in the creative perspective of tradition and the most recent technologies (which – sometimes dramatically – change all areas of human action).
16th national review or artistic work of children and youth that took place within the 59th annual Zlín Film Festival!
The exhibition of artwork of children and youth on the theme of SHARED IMAGINATION, orgaized by the expert division NIPOS, was on view from May 25th to June 7th, 2019 in the G18 gallery.
The collection of submitted and exhibited works mainly accents the depth of investigation on the theme of all phases of the creative process and the borader context of secorial overlaps and selected media. The exhibition maps projects of art teachers at all types of schools and extracurricular facilities from all over the Czech Republic. The show does not have the character of a competition, but promotes methods of creative work that make it possible to use the language of contemporary visual art and to approach the creative process as a whole.
We warmly invite you to the vernissage of the exhibition of bachelor’s and master’s dissertation works of the students in the studios of Footwear Design and Advertising Photography from the Department of Multimedia Communication of Tomas Bata University in Zlín.
The exhibition may be visited from 13.6. to 2.7. 2019. The vernissage will take place on 12.6. 2019 at 19:00 in the G18 gallery.
The landscape is simultaneously our environment and basic raw material. It has its own value, it is home, nature, we share it with other plants and animals, we manage it and enjoy it. The new exhibition Traces of Landscape combines natural and urban environments. It is based on the belief that our landscape is public space because a major part of it belongs to the public and the public is accustomed to considering it their own.
Come to the G18 gallery, where you will see works dealing with experiencing and enjoying the landscape. Artists do not pose questions about sustainability and climate change, but take on the peculiarities of specific places, create and complete the space, its appearance, rhythm and temporality and tesify to what each particular landscape really is and what life in it is like.
Exhibition Vernissage: 23. 10. 2019
Exhibition Duration: 24. 10. – 30. 11. 2019
Curator: Romana Veselá
Exhibiting artists: Conrad E. Armstrong & Viktor Valášek, Robert Casati & Magda Stanová & Stéphanie Roisin, Iva Kolorenčová, Marie Vránová