Matyáš Chochola

Holder of Jindřich Chalupecký Award 2016

"By his extensive installation, Matyáš Chochola proved that contemporary art is able to communicate the key global themes, moods and forms of today’s world in a way in which they are experienced and reflected in local context." (Marek Pokorný, Head of the Jury)

Matyáš Chochola (*1986) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague at the Painting Studio II / Vladimír Skrepl School. He has spent one semester at the studio of Thomas Zipp at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. Chochola works primarily in the media of installation and performance. His body of work represents a variedly composed universe whose integral part is constituted by the figure of the artist himself. Chochola experiments with postinternet aesthetics, an unorthodox yet sophisticated combination of the symbols of the present and its ancient roots. Trash aesthetics meets precise glass-making techniques, spilled color meets silk painting, the poetry of shamanism meets a 90s disco. In 2012, Chochola received the Václav Chad Award at the 6th Zlín Youth Salon. He has introduced his work at a number of exhibition institutions in the Czech Republic as well as in Italy and Germany; in the past year, for instance, at the Grimmuseum in Berlin and at SVIT Gallery in Prague.