I met Adam Kovalčík through the realization of a completely new sculpture titled "The Head of Czechoslovak Dadaists, Dr. Hugo Dux" by sculptor Jan Hendrych for the city of Teplice, which we conceptually and productionally prepared together in 2022 and 2023. This gave me the opportunity to also get to know Adam's work, which had already gained the attention of the Teplice city administration. In 2021, he created a tribute to Jaroslav Kubera for them—a cigarette protruding from the facade of the Teplice city hall, which emits smoke at regular intervals. The cigarette is complemented by a plaster relief in the interior of the city hall.
I mention this realization mainly because, in my opinion, it crystallizes Adam's artistic approach. Adam Kovalčík is a graduate of Jan Hendrych's figurative sculpture studio, and perhaps in spite of this or precisely because of this, he chooses a conceptual approach in his own realizations and work. In other works of his (the realized monument of Jan Kaplický, the unrealized proposal for a statue of Jan Nepomucký for the roundabout in Nepomuk, the planned pumps for Žižkov, the Karlín raft, and others), Adam cleverly unravels the context of the initial situation or the given personality and chooses an appropriate sign or symbol for it, a strong and apt visual metaphor. His realizations have a precise point; they are not pathetic, intrusive, or occupy and colonize public space. Adam prefers less conspicuous forms and playful strategies.
Game and sport are, after all, one of the themes that continuously appear in his work – for example, his disappointment with the outcome of the discussions around the realization (or rather non-realization) of his winning project in the competition for the statue of Jan Nepomucký for the roundabout in Nepomuk was transformed into a ping-pong set, where the table was made from a traffic sign and the paddles, cast in plaster, crumbled to dust during the course of the game, which took the form of a happening. His realization for Prague’s Proluka consisted of monumental football goal objects that served their purpose. Similarly, the stainless steel volleyball net reflecting its surroundings, which Adam prepared for the Kukačka festival in Ostrava in 2019, the football goals unsettle the viewer or visitor by changing the familiar parameters of the sports environment – changing the scale, changing the material. The environment of the game, relaxation, and escape into another world thus becomes more of an inclined plane, an uncertain surface, a space where uncertainty and danger play the same role as their positive semantic counterparts.
The playful line can also be found in his current realization – the Karlín Raft, which was created as part of the open call by the Prague City Gallery "Art for the City" and was officially opened to the public on May 14, 2024. The raft is walkable, you can bounce on it, rock, lie down, rest, and of course, play at sailing. Through the gaps between the logs, viewers and users of the raft can find a humorous reference to the local market. This reference is also present in the form of large shopping bags creating the surface on which the raft symbolically floats. The logs it is made of are all cleaned bark beetle wood. This combination brings additional interesting meanings and imaginations – the bark beetle wood "floated" on the surface of a consumer society. At the same time, in the environment of a multicultural market, the raft can also evoke the issue of migration across the sea, including many grim fates of specific people. Last but not least, it evokes the connection, linking of two localities – Holešovice and Karlín, recently updated by the award-winning HolKa footbridge, but also their boundaries – after all, the object of the vessel with the Karlín flag is suddenly the territory of another power, another district in Holešovice! The author thus challenges not only the local topography but also local patriotism, but again does so within the context of humor and play.
