(b Orlov?, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic], 11 Dec 1925). Czech sculptor. He studied in Prague at the School of Applied Arts (1945-51) and at the Academy of Fine Arts (1951-4). Until the early 1960s he produced figure sculptures influenced by ancient Egyptian art, and in particular by Cycladic sculpture. His interest lay in the symmetrical features of the human body. When he became familiar with the work of Alexander Calder, he discovered the potentials of modern sculpture beyond traditional limits. Between 1963 and 1973 he created white geometrical sculptures independent of their environment, concentrating on unstable shapes. In 1973-80 he made constructions using wood, ropes, oakum, rusty pieces of metal and so on. The disparate materials served to shape concepts of space, often by a strikingly parallel treatment of the material fragments and of an analogous geometrical object.
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