Skála's works are divided into two distinct time periods on this website. This corresponds to the two different first names under which he has presented his artistic practice over the past three decades. From 1998 to 2015, he used the name Jiří Skála. Since 2015, he has been active under the name Jirka Skála.
Jirka Skála (1976) is artist, writer and teacher based in Prague and Brno. His artistic practice focuses primarily on the media of performance, photography, video and drawing. He also pursues a long-term
interest in essay and short story writing. Most of his efforts are
directed at thematising the transformations of paid and unpaid labour
under the conditions prevalent in Eastern Europe. He focuses on
interweaving these two activities and the way they become a source of
new exploitation, domination and dehumanization. With his artistic
production, he endeavours to find adequate means of resistance, as
well as powerful metaphorical representations.
His
work has been presented at diverse international collective
exhibitions such as GNS at Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2003), The Other
Tradition at Wiels in Brussels (2011), Manifesta 11 in Zurich (2016),
as well as solo exhibitions such as Exchange of
Handwriting at Art in General in New York (2006), Two Families of Objects at Hunt Kastner Gallery in
Prague (2007), Jabberwocky at Foksal Gallery in Warsaw (2014) and most
recently Aspirations of Foreign Bodies at
Hunt Kastner Gallery in Prague (2022).
His
publications include One Family of Objects (JRP Ringier, 2010),
Litany of Precariat and Boundaries of Opportunities (Nakladatelství
AVU, 2019 and 2022). His essays and stories have been published in a
wide spectrum of Czech magazines and websites such as A2, ArtMap,
Fotograf, Idea, Revue Prostor and Springerin.