Seeks a new identity for artefacts, one that is static but yet has potential for movement at the same time, personalised minimalist resources, lyricism but yet a non-sentimental substance.
The ability to ask timely questions about contemporary society’s relationship to nature, on personal freedom and obligations to society, a strong feeling for the creativity of cultural and geographic differences. This is how we could generally characterise the creations of Ivan Kafka. For his type he is unique but still open to a wide spectrum of interpretation. He can engage the viewer with a simple, universally understandable language – without verbose packaging, encrypted symbols, or additional explanations. Of himself he has, for a long time now, had a fixed spot in the Czech and international creative (art) scenes.
Kafka tends mostly to express himself through big installations in the countryside. He uses them to take basically utilitarian objects and introduce them in new relationships to natural happenings (i.e. the long-term project, Room for Freedom (and also Despair) / Prostor volnosti (i skleslosti) – a modified compositional set of windsocks in various parts of Europe. He is also interested in exploring the possibilities of closed, architecturally-fixed, determined space (i.e. the interior set up of ping-pong balls, battle-axes, darts, or the arms on watches that run their cycle, but do not show the time, or installations hung at precisely-defined levels from pieces of white cotton, which is an artificial transfiguration of a cloudy sky, Darkened Light).
He similarly understands the challenge of municipal bodies (i.e. Boundaries (Limitations) on Jánský vršek in Prague / Vymezení na Jánském vršku v Praze, Joyous Alarm in London and Munich / Výstraha z radosti v Londyně a Mnichově). Kafka reassesses given space to provide it a new order and through this a new purpose. He uses multiple resources which themselves have their own potential and reflect a completely different function from their original ones.
Each Kafka work is integral in its sense of unity both general and private. It is however primarily the private role that directs Kafka’s creativity. In large public installations it is there for its potential and without superfluous proclamations. However, from time to time Kafka has a need to focus exclusively on it (creativity). This concerns an in-depth research on problems that demand greater attention and focused contemplation on the paradox of the relationship between natural and artificial, public and private. In these moments Kafka chooses to use a smaller format. These are a certain type of space commentary (sketches, Plexiglas cubes), which have the same meaning for him as do larger installations. Kafka’s realisations are based on a firmly-set concept, whose important component is a clearly-formulated idea. At times it may be expressed in the title, which also becomes a fundamental part of the artistic work. Similarly it has a minimalist aesthetic, preferring rather the traditional.
