Patrik Illo: Beautiful Unnecessaries

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Where?

• Slovenský inštitút vo Viedni

  • Wipplingerstrasse 24-26, 1010 Viedeň

When?

• Opening: 13. 5. 2024, 18:30 CET

  • musical production: Alan Bartus (piano)
  • register at: si.vienna@mzv.sk

• Exhibition duration: 13. 5. 2024 - 21. 6. 2024

 

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Curator:

• PhDr. Petr Nový; PhD.

Patrik Illo – Beautiful Unnecessaries

Contemporary fine art offers many intertwining forms and forms from practical, design, to art concepts and visions. Patrik Illo (*1973) works with glass as a designer and artist and excels in both positions. He can respect the specifics of these disciplines. He does not design art or programmatically create a solitary design, but always creates in the truest sense of the word. During his more than twenty-five-year career, he projected his creativity into approximately one thousand patterns, prototypes, collections and objects. He is a very hardworking artist who is also involved in teaching activities, collaborates with other artists, organizes symposiums and, as a curator, also presents other authors. The exhibition presents a selection of his design works from serial production to original collections.

Since 1998, Illo has been cooperating with the Slovak glass factory RONA from Lednické Rovní, where he works as an external chief designer. He also designed for the Polish companies KROSNO and WRZESNIAK and the Czech brands MOSER, CRYSTALEX and LASVIT. A common feature of his product design is a consistent effort to use the client's specifications. He is an empathetic creator, attentive to details, who can connect his ideas with the character of the brand. This is also a prerequisite for their not only artistic, but also commercial success. Ten years ago, Patrik Illo together with the Polish designer Aleksandra Stencel (*1987) founded his own studio ILLOLA, in which he focuses on the creation of design products combining traditional craftsmanship with conceptual undertones.

Already since his university studies, Illo has also had an art design position on the border between design and free work. At first glance, these are often utilitarian objects, but they are created programmatically as solitaires or limited collections. They are not opposed to cooperation in this area either. Together with the painter Laco Teren (*1960), an important representative of Slovak postmodern and neo-expressionist painting, he created a remarkable art collection of vases in 2021.

During his design career, Patrik Illo has created dozens of commercial hits, whose global sales reach tens of thousands to millions of pieces, depending on whether they are hand- or automatically produced. Although he comes from a small country under the Tatras, he is undoubtedly among the most successful contemporary world designers. For decades, his creativity has not only brought pleasure to numerous consumers, but also the livelihood of hundreds of artisans and merchants.

 

PhDr. Petr Nový, Ph.D.

Muzeum skla a bižuterie v Jablonci nad Nisou

 

 

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