Zachęta Project Room

curator: Magda Kardasz
cooperation: Karolina Bielawska, Markéta Nováčková, Adéla Součková

Habima Fuchs defines her exhibitions as an open field throughout which the viewer can take an infinite number of trips. The same is true for the show at the Zachęta Project Room. The gallery space is like a sheet of paper on which the author’s hand draws/arranges various visual or spatial elements. The scenography of her shows consists of textiles or furniture-like plinths rather than of the usual gallery étalage. An attentive viewer will perceive Habima Fuchs’s exhibition with all his senses, as the artist builds the mood of the different rooms by carefully arranging objects, lights, colours, aromas. Her artistic practice consists in remaining open to various inspirations, from the past and present.

The artist’s works are syncretic, in terms of both form and content, and possess immense metaphorical potential. Habima Fuchs is not wary of existential, philosophical or metaphysical themes. She analyses motifs and symbols from various cultures, freely combining Christian iconography with Oriental religious imagery sourced especially from Buddhism. For several years now Habima Fuchs has been experimenting with ceramics, drawn by the primeval aspect of the art. She often combines or connects ceramic sculptures with natural items such as dried plants, twigs or bamboo sticks.

Her earlier exhibitions were total installations consisting of drawings, multi-colour mural paintings, painted textiles, sculptures, and found objects. With time, the artist began to reduce her expressive range, the exhibitions becoming pithier, the colour schemes more restricted. The same is the case with the exhibition at the Zachęta Project Room, which draws its title — Salt Sea Water Absorbed by Cloud Turns Sweet — from the Royal Song by Saraha, a Tantric Buddhist master. The title seems to suggest that the exhibition is devoted to the idea of transformation as the driving force of man and the world.

Habima Fuchs born 1977. She lives and works in Čáslav (Czech Republic).