Anna Hulacova Mini Solo Exhibition

Text/Chen Chi-Hsiang Exhibition Dates: October 3 to December 16. Venue: Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris – Open Space. The Open Space is a venue dedicated by the Fondation Louis Vuitton to presenting cutting-edge contemporary art, regularly inviting French and international artists to imagine specific projects. This small nomadic space atop the museum building often hides within major exhibitions, unnoticed. Yet the works shown here are worth savoring, carrying messages of the times; in recent years, many rising Eastern European talents have appeared here.

Anna Hulačová’s mini solo exhibition was sandwiched between the vibrant retrospectives of Egon Schiele and Jean-Michel Basquiat. While audiences were drawn to these two artistic stars, they forgot Anna Hulačová’s show existed. As an art enthusiast, I did not overlook any exhibition. Pushing open the empty gallery doors, the museum staff looked at me with surprise. It felt somewhat like failing to recognize Mount Tai for what it is.

Born in 1984 in the Czech Republic and currently working and living in Prague, Anna Hulačová is a rising contemporary art talent from Eastern Europe, famous for her concrete group sculptures. Her work draws on multiple inspirations, blending ancient Greek and Roman mythology, Czech folklore, and modernist elements within postmodern semiotics. She often embodies hybrid creatures between simplified humans and animals, existing between reality and fantasy, poetry and imagination, the ancient and the future—a fable of a constantly transforming world.

Underworld Upside Down (2018) is a unique spatial installation featuring a group of figures and creatures. At its core lies a grotesque Dionysus lying diagonally on an inverted outdoor swimming pool painted light blue, bubbles rising from his body, holding a bunch of grapes. Surrounding him is a group of four modern people balancing or holding genderless home appliances (such as kettles, toasters, robot mixers, etc.) on their heads. Daily items replace the food and drink of mythological stories. Behind them, a series of decorative biological or plant spiral curves create a dramatic scene mixing modern and traditional, narrative and literary contexts, aiming to reference a fantasy about the future world. The artist states, "I saw lonely sculptures—whether as characters affected by the environment or silhouettes. A group of sculptures, conversely, represents a society that influences how we manage our environment."