Robert Smolík and Veronika Vlková look together at the work and legacy of visual artist, performer, educator, and art theorist Joseph Beuys. His thinking brought a radical shift in the 1970s, when art came to be seen as part of every human life and as a way to change the world. In the glare of lightning blends the setting of a theatre performance and an exhibition with elements of séance, healing ritual, and celebration of art and creativity. It invites anyone bold enough to get muddy into a landscape of objects that hold the seeds of transformation. In a quiet dialogue, Smolík and Vlková search for ways to reconnect with the Earth and its inhabitants. As a creative duo, they smoothly follow up on their previous collaboration with Terén on Návštěva, a production presented in South Korea, Mexico, Finland, Croatia, Slovakia, and numerous Czech festivals.
Robert Smolík
The visual artist and theatre author Robert Smolík focuses primarily on puppet making and stage design. He studied scenography at the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre at the Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) in Prague, where he has been a full-time lecturer since 2004 and led the Scenography Studio between 2011 and 2018. Since 2020, he has been teaching in the master’s program at KALD. His main teaching focus is sustainable theatre. As a scenographer, he collaborates with professional puppet theatres – most recently mainly with the Naive Theatre in Liberec. Between 2005 and 2018, his theatre work centered on collaborations with the group Buchty a loutky and, above all, on research and development with the group Handa Gote. He is currently working with the collective Škrobotník, Šlundra and Šibrová. He is also active as a civic activist in his hometown of Jičín, where he serves as the chairman of the Balbineum association, which aims to revitalize the Jesuit College in Jičín. He is the recipient of numerous scenography awards from the Mateřinka and Skupa’s Pilsen festivals. For the film The Magic Quill (Čertí brko), he was nominated for the Czech Lion Award in the category of film scenography.
Veronika Vlková
Veronika Vlková is a visual artist, illustrator, and educator. She has long been engaged in work for children, children’s therapy, and children are also often a motif in her personal artistic practice. As a children’s book illustrator, she often collaborates with Jan Šrámek. Among their award-winning works are the book To je metro, čéče (“That’s the Metro, Dude”), which received the Most Beautiful Czech Book of the Year award in the category for children and young adults and was included in the selection of exhibited illustrations at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2020, as well as Apolenka z modrotisku (“Apolenka from Blueprint”), for which the duo won the Illustrator of the Year award at Czech Grand Design 2020.
