Eva Kmentová

This artist’s work features sculptures, drawings, objects and installations. Kmentová opened for Czech art themes of corporeality in forms different than were previously the norm. The corporeality motif here does not mean imitating the external visual appearance of the body (including all avant-garde variations that, however, similarly remained on the body’s surface). Touch with the body is important for Kmentová, the haptic perception, the wounding and fragmentariness of the body. Her artistic strategies are similar to the methods of some scientific depictions that show representations that seek considerable or absolute credibility (e.g. dactyloscopy, anatomic models and dissections). Kmentová's works are often made by imprinting or casting to amorphous, malleable matter. This process is sometimes set and shown – in some artefacts Kmentová confronts the formed and confined core with an amorphous material, a kind of primitive matter, and thus repeats or comments upon the basic life or evolutionary process (the organization of matter). The process itself is extremely important here – the artist shows the transformations, movement and breakdown (she often uses temporary, ephemeral materials and works with the impression of instability and forthcoming decline). Kmentová's favourite technical approach – imprint – allows the creation of indexal or natural images that seem to create themselves, without help from a human hand. The result of this strategy is a kind of pars pro toto, i.e. a partial, fragmentary image that does not insist on entirety (distanced) and on optical phenomenon. What is important is a kind of co-essence of the present and non-present, of a work and body or object (specific, individual). The main model of the artist’s works is the body itself, the figures of family members. Kmentová examines her intimate space, inhabited and defined by the body and determined by it as a specific space, not an abstract space (In Heidegger's words, as a kind of "illumination of a wasteland").

Statues in public spaces:

1988

Kašna, Prostějov

1976

Dělicí stěna, divadlo Olomouc (s. L. Jiránkem)

1975

Interiér a exteriér budovy MSS, Praha

1973

List v pohybu (s J. Novákem), Prosek, Praha,

Bez názvu, koleje UK Kajetánka, Střešovice, Praha

1971

Květ, Prosek, Praha

1969

Brána snů, Liberec (s. J. Novákem)

1968

plastická stěna, Bratislava,

reliéfní plastika, OZ Prostějov

1967

Hlava, která chce spát, ČSA v Bělehradě

Strom, Sokolov

1965

série balkonových mříží pro průčelí, Státní divadlo v Brně

1962

řada skic pro Čs. Ambasádu v Brasilii, z nich socha Zrození nyní v Památníku Lidice

1960-1965

rozměrný abstraktní reliéf pro průčelí KNV v Ústí nad Labem

Eva Kmentová, Müllerová K, 2008, kat. 32 str., SNG Bratislava, ISBN 978-80-8059-137-3. Teď (Práce Evy Kmentové), Bregantová P , Vachtová L, 2006, Souborný kat. 303 str., Arbor vitae, MG v Brně, ISBN 80-86300-59-5. Téma Eva Kmentová, ed. Klimešová M, 2004, 88 str., SGVU v Litoměřicích, ISBN 80-85090-59-7. Eva Kmentová, Klimešová M, 2003. Kat. 120 str., SGVU v Litoměřicích, ISBN 80-85090-50-3. Eva Kmentová: Životní dílo, Šetlík J, 1989, Kat. 36 str., Opava, ISBN 80-900011-3-0. Eva Kmentová: Kresby a plastiky, Šetlík J, 1989, kat. 36 str., VČG v Pardubicích.  Eva Kmentová: Kresby a plastiky, Situace 8 (1980), 20 str. Jazzová sekce, Praha. L´art aujourd´hui en Tchecoslovaquie, Bénamou G, 1979, 190 str., fr. Eva Kmentová, Chalupecký J, 1977, kat. 32 str., soukr. Tisk. Eva Kmentová, Šetlík J, 1963, kat 12 str., ČFVU Praha.