Museum of New

During the last two decades, Lumír Hladík has waded into an unusual stream of influences: paleontology, museology, anatomy and most important of all, the Canadian wilderness. His main inspiration is, however “the irrationality of the human mind.” Lumír states that “we”, “rational” humans, claimed to have moved beyond our animal core. But often, what we call rational is our justification of outright irrational behaviour with a rational argument.”

Artist’s statement

 My art revolves around themes of entropy, celebrity and immortality. Why do people admire “winners”? They are closer to perfection; the absolute top perfectionist being GOD (it)self. the creator of All, the top celebrity of all. The immortality status is, however, in most cases driven by pure irrationality.

People often ask me why I use wild living animals in the creation of my art. I believe that wild animals have - to this day – kept their innocence and hence immortality; they have not been chased out of Paradise. Ironically, not only do we, the human animal, deny this, we also believe that we are the only life form endowed with a rational mind and thus feel superior to animals. And yet, we are the only life form that is capable of committing atrocities. In my process, as soon as an animal touches my art objects, they become reliquaries and I consider them sacred and I treat them as such.