With this exhibition, we are putting a cosmopolitan of Central Switzerland up for discussion: Pravoslav Sovak (b. in Vysoké Mýto in 1926). Sovak has lived in Switzerland – first in Lucerne and then in Hergiswil – since 1969, when he emigrated from the former Czechoslovakia. From 1975 to 2001 he was a professor of graphic arts in Cologne. Sovak has held an autonomous artistic position since the 1950s. His prolific oeuvre interweaves threads of Cubism, Pop and Concept Art while also seeking dialogue with the Old Masters. Adolf Loos, František Kupka and Franz Kafka all had a formative influence on him in his early years. After his emigration to the West, he sought expanse and freedom in the Nevada desert, concerned himself repeatedly with the theme of the city and travelled to the landscapes of China, ultimately to return to his roots in the forests of Bohemia with his digital camera. Contrary paths meander through an oeuvre as subtle as it is concentrated: his recent collages, for example, bring together widely varied traces of a long artistic life.

Over the decades, Pravoslav Sovak’s art has been shown in exhibitions mounted by prominent museums and galleries in Europe and the U.S. and appraised in various publications. His work is represented in major museum collections – for example the Albertina in Vienna, the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, the Guggenheim Museum or the MoMA in New York. Interestingly, Sovak is known in the U.S. and Europe alike and highly appreciated by experts; in Switzerland, however, he has remained largely unknown to this day. And that’s where the Kunsthaus Zug comes in – to honour this outstanding artist with his first museum retrospective in Switzerland. We will show 250 works dating from the 1940s to the present: prints, drawings, paintings, collages and photographs. Against the background of our collection focus on the Viennese Modernism, we regularly feature artistic positions of Central and Eastern Europe. With Pravoslav Sovak we will continue this tradition.

Curated by Matthias Haldemann