Dokoupil's soap bubbles invade Venice's Marciana Library

Czech artist Jiří Georg Dokoupil (Krnov, 1954) is on view from June 22 to August 18, 2024 in the Monumental Rooms of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice with his Venetian Bubbles, a solo exhibition curated by Reiner Opoku and supported by the Association for Art in Public. On this occasion, Dokoupil presents eight of his first large glass sculptures, seven large paintings and a series of works on paper. The exhibition context, enriched by the works of Venetian Renaissance masters such as Veronese, Titian, Tintoretto and Zelotti, allows Dokoupil to freely explore materials and techniques, experimenting with new approaches to glass art with a combination of freedom, playfulness and humor, capturing the ephemerality of existence.

Venetian Bubbles sees Dokoupil exhibit seven large paintings (ranging in size from 200 to 400 centimeters) depicting colorful soap bubbles. Since the 1970s, the artist has perfected a technique of mixing soap and pigments to blow bubbles onto a painted canvas, guiding their explosion to create intricate organic imprints. Such unpredictable artistic patterns evoke a sense of spontaneity that defies the artist’s control and the concept of permanence that underlies painting. Dokoupil reflects on the deep themes of the human condition: the breath required to create the bubbles evokes the fleetingness of life, while the imprints on the canvas reveal the impermanence of our existence.

Dokoupil’s new glass sculptures are a three-dimensional extension of his celebrated Soap Bubble paintings. Seven metal bottle holders (ranging in height from 80 to 200 centimeters) are decorated with glass bubbles of different luminous hues. The artist calls them “homemade Venetian bubbles,” referring to the Czech origin of the makers, including master glassmakers from the Bohemia region.

By reinterpreting common objects in an artistic key, Dokoupil challenges the traditional use of materials and encourages glassmakers to explore new creative dynamics in the sculptural process, breaking both the established techniques of artists and the expectations associated with craftsmanship. The glass bubbles hanging from the woman-shaped bottle holders create a striking contrast between fragility and strength, emphasizing recurring themes of transience and permanence.

A prominent work in the exhibition is Open Bubbles Condensation Cube, a tribute to Dokoupil’s former teacher, Hans Haacke. This work encloses glass bubbles within a box filled with condensed water, representing Dokoupil’s approach of integrating the environment and the viewer into the art itself, simulating a living system within the work.

Notes on the artist

A leading figure in the “Neue Wilde” movement in Germany, Jiří Georg Dokoupil never limited himself to a specific genre or style. On the contrary, he preferred to transcend traditional practices, using unusual materials such as whip marks, candle soot, fruit, and soap bubbles, demonstrating a variety of approaches to painting that defy categorization.

Despite his versatility, painting remains Dokoupil’s primary artistic expression. Refusing to be bound to a personal style or conventional artistic approach, he has been working freely and unconventionally since the beginning of his career in the 1980s0. The artist’s experimental spirit creates a wide range of visual worlds through unconventional technical inventions that still allow him to capture the ephemeral in his works. Dokoupil’s work can now be found in more than 60 collections and includes more than 100 techniques or styles.

In this context, Venetian Bubbles represents an evolution of Jiří Georg Dokoupil’s multifaceted artistic practice. The delicate bubbles become timeless expressions of artistic ingenuity, reflecting the artist’s constant quest for innovation, challenging the boundaries of artistic media with themes of impermanence and transformation.

Dirk Geuer, curator of all art exhibitions at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice hosted in parallel with the Biennale Arte 2024, says, “The juxtaposition of Dokoupil’s artworks with Renaissance paintings by Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese in such a historically significant location opens a dialogue between old and new masters, where past and present can meet at eye level and allows visitors to experience both, figurative and abstract art at its best.”

Dokoupil's soap bubbles invade Venice's Marciana Library

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