From true beauty to gilded shit. A discussion of why beauty in contemporary art is suspicious, how it can be a secret weapon and why we sometimes love most what initially repelled us.

EVA KLEČKOVÁ
No, art doesn’t have to be beautiful. Quite the opposite, actually. It’s not that beauty is a bad thing, but it shouldn’t mask emptiness.

FILIP BRANDEJSKÝ
Art should be just as it is. Honest, authentic, highbrow and lowbrow, beautiful and clumsy, controversial and conservative – simply anything. As long as it doesn’t bark at me.

BARTOLOMĚJ ŠOLC
What I like about art is that it doesn’t have to be anything.

AMÁLIE RYBÁKOVÁ
At AVU, I learned that we know very little about beauty and that it’s important to follow your intuition.

PAVEL GERYK
In my opinion, art should above all have energy and speak to the viewer in some way or provoke them to look at things from a different angle.

MARKÉTA VYCHODILOVÁ
I don’t think beauty should be a fundamental requirement. In the context of my thesis, it would be rather suspicious.

KLÁRA KUSÁ
It depends on what is meant by the term “beautiful”. If we consider Kant’s definition of beauty, which has long been outdated, I think art must be anything but beautiful.

JIŘÍ GRUBER
I believe that neither art nor architecture needs to be beautiful. Or, to be more precise – the category of the beautiful is, in my view, partly determined by social consensus, which is also shaped by historical and cultural influences and in extreme cases may even have to do with social and cultural hierarchies.

MATOUŠ KAŠPAR
I do not perceive beauty or ugliness as evaluative categories that determine the quality of a work of art, but rather as means of expression.

MATYÁŠ FIALA
That’s a bit of a strange question. It’s a cliché, but I think that what is beautiful is subjective. Art should probably strive more for refinement, sincerity and responsibility toward itself and toward the audience.

KEYA SINGH
It is nice when things are beautiful, but it becomes tiring when beauty is restricted to specific boxes.

VOJTĚCH ČEPELÁK
I think there is such a thing as absolute beauty. Some people have the gift of recognising beauty in various things, of seeing it. But seeing and recognising it doesn’t mean being able to create it.

MATOUŠ KUČERA
Beauty isn’t just about being pleasing to the eye; it’s the truth hidden beneath a layer of grime.

TADEÁŠ POCHMAN
Beauty is the inner ability to cope with the world’s most difficult images and scenarios.

VIKTOR PROKOP
Often, the works of art that initially repel me or make me feel distant are the ones that end up being the most interesting to me. Only when I try to understand them and experience what they have in store does my perception begin to change. That is why I feel that all art is, in fact, beautiful, because it transforms my relationship with the world.

EMA PROSOVÁ
Beauty is a feeling evoked by the world – it can be found in imperfection, in the fragility of a moment, or in an experience.

MATĚJ PAVELKA
AVU shifted my perspective from formal beauty to what is concrete in a work of art and allowed me to focus on the process rather than the appearance.

JÁCHYM ŠIMEK
Art can be beautiful and ugly at the same time.

DOMINIKA VYSKOČILOVÁ
Beauty can be used as a secret weapon to confront the viewer with uncomfortable content.

ENISA SKOKO
For me, the mere fact that something is constantly being created is beautiful.

KAREL VLADYKA
I appreciate beauty as an aesthetic quality and such art definitely has its place in my life. On the other hand, at one of my summative assessment exhibitions, inspired by John Waters’ films, I exhibited my gold-plated turd, which I look back on with a bit of embarrassment, but with a smile.