Adéla Matasová is an atypical representative of the generation of misfits entering the Prague art scene in the latter half of the 1960s. She differed from most of her peers primarily in her ability to move freely between artistic disciplines. She retained her natural desire to experiment and try out new methods and techniques in during the political unfavourable times of the second half of the 20th century. The result was an organically connected body of work that began with ephemeral pieces involving paper and its derivatives, foreshadowing a gradual expansion into space, first through sculptural objects, later through performance and site-specific installations, and finally through work with sound and video in the post-revolutionary years.
In 1958–1964, Matasová studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague at the Vladimír Sychra school of monumental art. The focus of the studio allowed her to try out a number of techniques used in the decoration of representative and public spaces, whether this involved ceramics, mosaics or stained glass. The creative environment of Sychra’s studio brought together many future progressive artists. In addition to Zdeněk Beran, this included Jaroslava Pešicová, Eva Prokopová, Jana Míčková and Eva and Čestmír Janošek. While the latter experienced with shotcrete, Matasová was entranced by informel. In its spirit she created a series of paintings, prints and drawings while a student, which she developed in 1966 and 1967 in the series of drawings entitled Subjektivní krajiny / Subjective Landscapes, which introduced the viewer to the immanent world of intertwining fibres and structures of biological origin.
Like all of her fellow students mentioned above, after leaving art school Matasová immediately became involved in exhibitions, participating in collective shows such as the intergenerational Jarní výstava 66 / Spring Exhibition 66 at Mánes and the Výstava mladých / Exhibition of the Young at the Václav Špála Gallery the following year. Thanks to her multifaceted training and her inclination towards spatial expression, she was able to try her hand at sculpture in Neratovice as early as 1967, just a few years after graduating from the Academy. The monumental stone Znaky v prostoru / Signs in Space, an example of the modernist morphology of the 1960s, reveals her ability to technically master almost any material. In addition to an income, working on state commissions, something Matasová engaged in continuously right up till 1989, offered her the opportunity to upsize the principles embedded in working with paper to a monumental scale. In the 1980s especially, this resulted in several outstanding plaster and ceramic works, such as the relief wall Zřídlo / Foutainhead from 1982 for the Jánské lázně spa town, and Strom / Tree for the hospital in Plzeň a year later.
The promising start to her career as artist was violently interrupted by the events of 1968, when troops of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country. Like many other artists, Matasová had to deal with the lack of opportunities on the art scene by working as a restorer, an activity that provided her with a modest income for many years. Despite the difficulties involved in presenting her work publicly, in 1971 she managed to mount her first solo exhibition at the Ostrov Summer Palace in Karlovy Vary. The self-confidence acquired through her monumental works then informed her free creations, in which she boldly stepped beyond the constraints of the paper surface. White surrealist objects made of synthetic resin entitled Kříž / Cross, Rty / Lips, Ucho I / Ear I, Ucho II / Ear II, Ruka / Hand and Oči / Eyes are not merely illustrations of sensory organs, but by means of their stylised physicality tease us with unpleasantly erotic connotations. As regards this stage of Matasová’s work, comparisons can be drawn with artists working with their own corporeality and with the imprint and fragile existential essence of their own works, e.g. Eva Kmentová, Eva Hesse and Alina Szapocnikow.
The period of normalisation, the impossibility of exhibiting and a lack of income forced the artist to abandon her aesthetically impressive but financially and spatially demanding method of creating resin objects. In a pragmatic spirit, she returned to printmaking and experiments with paper in works made from cast or wrinkled paper and relief prints in single sheets, as well as in the cycles Doteky / Touches (1977–1979) and Zastavený pohyb / Suspended Movement (1979–1980). Haptic, pure white sheets of paper deformed under invisible pressure and touch reveal internal psychological and physical tensions. In 1974, Matasová resolved her creative overload and the need to exhibit with what was at that time a unique event at the Malá scéna in České Budějovice. In the stage performance Pohybová akce k hudbě E. Varése / Movement Action to Music by Edgard Varèse she renewed her childhood interest in dance accompanied by music, sound and shadow play.
The 1980s in Czechoslovakia were marked by an easing of conditions and a desire to reunite across generations after a period of separation. In 1982, in the company of other misfits, Matasová gathered with younger artists for an unofficial exhibition entitled Setkání na tenisových dvorcích / Encounters on Tennis Courts. It was during this period that she created fragile flat objects out of resin or linen, such as Zátěž / Burden (1984–1986), Porušení / Violation (1985–1986) and the Dialogue series (1986–1987), in which we begin to sense a mental affinity with the work of Adriena Šimotová. The turning point came in 1987/1988, when she began to intervene in space with what had up till then been mostly two-dimensional objects, and created site-specific installations with her linen paper objects. The very first one was an installation of paper objects in the photogenic, burnt-out Trade Fair Palace. This was followed in 1989 by the monumental Situace I / Situation I that included sound created by Alvin Lucier.
Immediately after the Velvet Revolution, Matasová achieved compensation for her years of enforced silence in the form of a teaching position at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in the studio of spatial design, textiles and alternative techniques, where her first students included Jiří Černický and Pavel Kopřiva. It was these alternative techniques that fascinated the naturally curious artist and which she soon began to incorporate into her work. Her interest in computers and their possible application was most evident. Thanks to new methods, her objects began to move. She remained with linen to begin with, but gradually replaced it with metal or mirrors. Kineticism brought new impulses to her work. For the first time she was able to actually initiate movement and not just metaphorically represent it, as we see in the series Pohyb a zastavení / Movement and Stoppage (1989–1990), in which she uses materials to capture the fleeting nature of gestures and movements. She also became interested in video, and this culminated in the monumental video installations that she continues to create to this day.
In her work after 1989, thanks to advances in technology and its accessibility, Matasová was able to open up new possibilities and to make the most of her natural embrace of various means of expression and media without obstacles. This resulted in the creation of several monumental kinetic objects in space, whose movement is programmed by computer. She combined heavy materials, such as metal with elastic membrane and laser or ultraviolet rays. In 1997, she created Skryté podoby / Hidden Forms, a collection of luminous kinetic objects that disrupt the viewer’s deeply ingrained approach to the centuries-old static image. The installation consisted of suspended objects that respond to the viewer’s presence by beginning to move imperceptibly and thus evince transformation.
The question of interactivity and the blurring of boundaries between the work and viewer also appears in other installations and objects by Matasová that feature mirrors that make the viewer both a part of the work and its observer. This was the case, for example, in the object Iluminace – Čeření / Illumination – Purification from 2005, which was created for the exhibition Noční hlídka srdce / Night Watch of the Heart, an exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of Vladimír Holan’s birth at Letohrádek Hvězda. Her aim was to process the space comprehensively, with literally everything, i.e. from light and movement to the sound and feelings the viewer will take away with them.
Since 2008, Matasová has focused on performance, as evidenced in the cycles Čechy leží u moře / Bohemia Lies by the Sea and Mluv ke mně / Speak to Me (both 2008) and Jak si usteleš / How You Make Your Bed (2010–2014). More recently, she has been creating videos with social overlaps, such as Každý jsme někdy přísahali / We Have All Taken an Oath at Some Time (2019) and Každý se někdy chtěl dotknout jsoucnosti / Everyone Has Wanted to Touch Existence at Some Time (2019–2020). In 2022, Matasová had her first retrospective exhibition Metasystémy at the Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region in Kutná Hora, which was accompanied by the publication Mezičas / Meantime, a comprehensive overview of her life’s work.
