Alena Nádvorníková

Alena Nádvorníková (1942) is an art historian and a member of the Surrealist Group in Czechoslovakia. The area of her activities is incredibly wide – she focuses on theory and criticism, for the Czech audience she introduced the phenomenon of art brut, she has been a curator of many exhibitions, an author of several poetry collections, an editor of books related mostly to Surrealism, and mainly she is a distinguished artist in her own rite. Her drawings are difficult to forget. They impress themselves into one‘s memory on first sight through their unsetting urgency. They trouble the mind while they call for our focused attention. They go against the grain of what can be called an externally pleasing effect. They destroy and heal at the same time. The initial sense of chaos is created in the works through the use of repetition but soon gives way to a feeling of calm and control. These works reflect both a sense of spontaneity and critical thinking as well. There is nothing random about them although they arise from the unique chance of the initial moment. They are characterized by a protest against any intellectual interpretation but they also provide a space for an almost infinite number of associations and explanations. This monograph of the work by Alena Nádvorníková examines the development of her art work and the individual authors of the texts view it from different angles. The book contains an overview of her life, examples of her poetry, and an outline of her theoretical foundations. Taken altogether, it shows that Alena Nádvorníková is one of the most interesting contemporary artists in the Czech Republic.

The book is produced in a bilingual Czech and French edition.