Krištof Kintera
Krištof Kintera (1973) is an award-winning artist whose work appears in many prestigious collections such as that of the Czech National Museum and the American Museum of Fine Arts. He has also sold many pieces to private Czech and foreign collectors. This 33-year-old sculptor and designer is something of an enfant terrible of the Czech art scene. His bizarre creations ranging from human figures made out of potatoes to depictions of household implements having sex are always daring and provocative in a manner reminiscent of Damien Hirst.
A prominent artist on the contemporary Czech scene, Krištof Kintera has also exhibited on the international circuit: at the Kunstmuseum in Bonn, Mikkeli Museum of Art in Finland, Moderna Museet in Sweden and Hamburger Bahnhof inBerlin. In France, his work drew particular attention during the inaugural exhibition of the Palais de Tokyo’s new management (5 milliards d’années (5 billion years) by Marc Olivier Wahler) and the FIAC 2006 special project in the Jardin des Tuileries, with the piece entitled Homegrown n° 2, a palm tree made out of empty Fanta cans stacked eight metres high.
Krištof Kintera’s work evokes the doubts that currently grip those societies undergoing rapid economic expansion in the wake of communism or totalitarian regimes. At the same time, his work is universal insofar as it reaches beyond local preoccupations, touching human nature in its very urges through the use of everyday objects that he cleverly warps. The laughter mechanism at this point serves to dig a critical chasm between oneself and the world. By turns humorous, linguistic or moving, the artist’s works conjure up the feelings at the root of the human condition, such as fear, the will to survive and pleasure.