Magdalena Jetelová

With Domestication of a Pyramid, LOHAUS SOMINSKY presents the second solo exhibition of the Czech sculptor and conceptual artist Magdalena Jetelová. At its center stands the pyramid motif, a defining element of her oeuvre. A monumental sand pyramid rises in one corner of the gallery space, from which the famous torso of Laocoön emerges. By inserting site-specific pyramids into interior spaces, Jetelová questions the claim to represent and preserve history—showing instead how history is selectively displayed, cultivated, or “domesticated.”

With her Domestication of Pyramids (1992–1995), Jetelová created a striking and politically charged body of work that has been realized in numerous museums. She transforms the monumental form of the pyramid into a confined interior setting, thereby challenging the mechanisms of cultural mediation as well as Western perceptions of history, space, and time.

Early drawings reveal that Jetelová was already engaged with this theme at the time of her participation in Documenta in 1987, when she first began developing her ideas around the pyramid. This motif runs like a red thread throughout her practice: time and again, she returns to the culturally charged and cross-cultural symbol of the pyramid, realizing it as an encounter of two architectural timescales in major museum exhibitions. These include the three-story pyramid created for the MAK in Vienna (1992); the Kunsthalle Hamburg (1985); Pyramide (Museum of Modern Art, Vienna, 1987); The Pyramid Project (Frankfurt am Main, 1990); Pyramids (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1992); and Domesticated Monuments (Prague, 1994), to name but a few. The exhibition thus makes visible both the historical origins and the enduring relevance of the pyramid motif within Jetelová’s artistic production.

In addition, the exhibition highlights Jetelová’s fundamental exploration of space and energy in the broadest sense. Since the 1980s she has produced large-scale works using fire, light, and laser projections. On view are early lightboxes from her Iceland Project (1992) as well as her monumental pyrotechnic drawings on canvas.

Magdalena Jetelová (*1946 in Semily, Czech Republic) is an internationally renowned sculptor, conceptual, and installation artist. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and at the Accademia di Brera in Milan. In 1985 she emigrated to Germany. From 1990 to 2004 she was professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and from 2004 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Jetelová’s works are held in major collections, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Kunsthalle, Hamburg; and the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, among others.

The exhibition VERBAL NON VERBAL invites viewers to question the boundaries and possibilities of human communication and to explore them visually anew. It features works by Magdalena Jetelová, José Vera...