The work of Jiří Kubový, beginning at the end of the sixties, defies art-history or theoretical pigeon-holding. We can find minimalistic and conceptual elements and procedures, which correspond to the progressive artistic tendencies of that time, and yet the artist himself denies such elements. Geometrising morphologies are challenged by a thorough, detailed oil painting or by the inclusion of a concrete item (a spring, key, stone, etc.), which underscores the poetic impression of the work. We can perceive Kubový’s pictures as a distinctive and systematic dialogue held not only with fine art (above all with the form of classic, hung painting), but also with literature (poetry) and the world around us (nature, the landscape and its elements, atmospheric phenomena, the universe). It is these elements which are the key motifs defining Kubový’s work in terms of both content and form.
Jiří Kubový began painting systematically in 1968, when he created his first oil paintings (Besieged Azure, 1969). However, he disturbed the classical format of a painting by breaking, cutting and moulding it. This resulted in pictures with irregular formats made of cardboard or hardboard often combined with other materials (wooden slats, wires, sand, mirrors). From the second half of the seventies the artist worked on cycles (1982-83 a cycle of rope pictures, 1980-84 the extensive cycle Nets, 1994-98 the cycle Drawings on Wood, etc.). The pivotal theme of Kubový’s works which appears constantly from the seventies onwards and in the nineties dominates his work is the landscape. The landscape takes many forms and shapes. For instance, the rope pictures, also called “empty”, can be a landscape, i.e. presented in colour in the shape of a rectangle of a tightened string (Picture, 1982), though also complex large wire compositions (Large Landscape, 2007; Landscape, 2008), which are of monumental proportions. Landscape can be represented by individual natural elements (Stones and Water, 2006), or can be poetically combined as over the last few years (Marrow and Star, 2010). At present the theme of the landscape is being transformed into pictures of the Říp mountains, following on from the cycle Old Volcanoes from the second half of the eighties.
In the seventies Jiří Kubový struck up friendship with important artists (Jiří Kolář, Ladislav Novák, Emil Juliš, Jan Kubíček, Jiří Valoch, etc.), who had a significant influence on him. He collaborated on specific works with some of them. On the other hand the person of Jiří Kubový, his compact artwork and unusual view of art, supported by his own activities as collector, contacts with important authors – all of this had a great influence on the formation of the personalities of the “Ústí Circle” (e.g. Michal Koleček, Martin Kolář, Jan Řezáč and others ). Jiří Kubový was also present at the creation of the charity organisation People for Fine Art – Fine Art for People, which since the nineties has been run by the Emil Filla Gallery in Ústí nad Labem.
