Zbyněk Sekal: A Private Matter

Description

The exhibition A Private Matter at the Museum of Modern Art presents not only an overview of Zbyněk Sekal's work (1926–1998) but primarily attempts to open up his inner world to the viewer as a space of memory, anxiety, order, and silence. Alongside selected sculptures, assemblages, and boxes, the exhibition also features his own words in the form of excerpts from diaries and personal thoughts, which create an intimate coordinate of the author's human presence. The exhibition is made possible by a donation to the collection of the Museum of Art Olomouc from the estate of the artist's wife, Christine Sekal. Zbyněk Sekal's artistic work is infused with deep personal experience and existential distress. He was an exceptionally focused and solitary person, marked by war, imprisonment, and time spent in a concentration camp. He coped with the experience of extreme chaos by seeking order in the things around him and creating a new whole from their fragments. This principle permeates all his work—from early sculptures from the 1950s, through hanging assemblages made from found objects and used materials from the 1960s, to the complex and rigorously composed boxes that he intensely focused on from the 1980s. Information about the exhibition
EXHIBITION: Zbyněk Sekal: A Private Matter. Insights into the collections of the Museum of Art Olomouc
DATES: 01 07 – 04 10 2026
LOCATION: Museum of Modern Art, Gallery
CURATORS: Olga Š. Staníková, Klára Jeništová
TRANSLATION AND LANGUAGE EDITING: Zuzana Henešová
INSTALLATION: Vlastimil Sedláček, Filip Šindelář, Radka Žáková
GRAPHIC DESIGN: Kateřina Manková
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS: Denisa Tessenyi, David Hrbek
The exhibition was made possible by a donation to the Museum of Art Olomouc from the estate of the artist's wife, Christine Sekal. In addition to sculpture, Sekal also engaged in drawing, collage, graphic design of book covers, and translations of challenging German philosophical and literary texts. At the same time, he formulated his own authorial texts and kept diaries, which today represent a unique key to understanding his thinking and artistic work. The diary entries become one of the important axes of this exhibition—not merely as a commentary on the work but as a natural part of it. As the author's voice, which remains quiet yet urgent. Besides existentialism, Sekal was strongly influenced by informal art, and although he remained a distinctive solitary figure, his work aligned with a broader circle of post-war European art, responding to the collapse of certainties and the search for a new language after the war. The need to close himself off from the surrounding world and the pressures of the contemporary regime led him to a certain form of internal emigration even before his actual departure after 1968 and subsequent settlement in Vienna. There he found his new studio, where he spent long hours in concentrated work alone, surrounded only by his works and an endless amount of material, and where he gradually built a protective microcosm. Sekal's work may seem quiet, sometimes even closed off. Yet—perhaps precisely because of this—it has the ability to resonate very personally. It does not impose interpretation nor offer unequivocal answers. Rather, it creates a space where one can pause for a moment and enter into concentrated silence. Perhaps it is here that his work opens up the most: as a patient assembling of the world from fragments, as an attempt to capture what otherwise disintegrates, and as a quiet yet urgent testimony to human experience.

Highlights

• Exhibition of Zbyněk Sekal's work (1926–1998)
• Features sculptures, assemblages, and personal writings
• Runs from July 1 to October 4, 2026

General Information

The exhibition 'A Private Matter' at the Museum of Modern Art offers an in-depth look at Zbyněk Sekal's artistic journey. It showcases his sculptures and assemblages while providing insights into his personal experiences through diary excerpts.

Location

Denisova 47, 779 00 Olomouc, Czech Republic

Hide Map

Loading map...

How to get there

Get Directions