The Incredible Lightness of Being: Jiří Pelcl – Czech Design
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7th Jan 2012 - 20th Feb 2012
University of Brighton GalleryThe Incredible Lightness of Being: Jiří Pelcl – Czech Design
This stunning exhibition is a major British premiere of the recent work of Jiří Pelcl, one of the foremost Czech designers today. Over recent years he has had close links with the University of Brighton and in 2006, the same year in which he was awarded the Czech National Design Award and the Form 2006 award in Germany, received an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in recognition of his international contribution to design and to design education. At the time he was Rector of the Prague Academy of Art, Architecture and Design that had, in the previous year, celebrated its 120th Anniversary which was attended by colleagues from Brighton.
Buy tickets for Pelcl Symposium
Exhibition: 7 January – 20 February 2012
Symposium: 20 January 2012
Exhibition opening times: Monday – Saturday, 10.00am – 5.00pm
University of Brighton Gallery, Faculty of Arts, Grand Parade, Brighton
Pelcl’s furniture, product design, interiors and architectural design have been widely recognised in international cultural and creative circles since he first attracted attention as founder of the radical Atika design group in 1987, which had reacted against the restrictive nature of design in the socialist state of Czechoslovakia.
Pelcl’s work featured in the exhibition 'Czech 100 Design Icons (of the 20th and 21st centuries)' that had received its British premiere in the University of Brighton Gallery in November 2005, having been displayed previously in the National Museum in Prague, the Kulturhuset in Stockholm, as well as in Bratislava and Berlin. Pelcl contributed a keynote address to the closely linked international conference entitled 'Czech Design, Culture and Society: Changing Climates,' also held at the University of Brighton. A Visiting Professor at the University, he has also provided support and encouragement for Brighton’s creative community through regular attendance at the summer degree shows.
Jiří Pelcl has received many highly celebrated design awards, numerous prestigious invitations to lecture around the world and has authored a number of books on design. With more than 20 solo and 110 group exhibitions globally, his work is also represented at the current exhibition 'Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–1990' at the Victoria and Albert Museum (2011-2012), co-curated by Jane Pavitt, former University of Brighton Principal Research Fellow at the V&A.
His place as an influential figure in design futures is evidenced through the work of a selection of present and former students included as the conclusion to 'The Incredible Lightness of Being: Jiří Pelcl – Czech Design' exhibition at Brighton. The show has been designed by Jiří Pelcl and curated by Sylva Petrova (University of Sunderland) in collaboration with Jonathan Woodham (University of Brighton Faculty of Arts).
Czech Design – Independent, Free and Democratic?
The Pelcl Symposium
20 January 2012
Sallis Benney Theatre, Faculty of Arts, University of Brighton, Grand Parade, Brighton, BN2 OJY
Symposium
The Brighton exhibition provides an opportunity to study Jiří Pelcl’s work at first hand as well as the platform for a one-day symposium.
Drawing on original contributions from design professionals, design critics, theorists and historians from the Czech Republic and the UK, the symposium will consider the ways in which Czech design horizons have changed since the mid-1980s when the ideologies of the Eastern Bloc began to undergo change and challenge. The emergence of a new democratic state has not been without its problems for design.
For further information, and to book a place at the symposium, please contact Madeleine Dutton: 01273 643720 or m.j.dutton@brighton.ac.uk
