Benedikt Tolar

Sculptor and university teacher; he lives and works in Plzeň and Manětín. From 1996 to 2002 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague — the studios of Karel Nepraš and Vladimír Skrepl. It was the sculptor Jindřich Zeithamml who inspired him towards sculpture. From 2005 to 2010 he worked as an assistant in the Sculpture and Space studio at the Institute of Art and Design in Plzeň, in 2006–2007 he taught at the Higher Vocational School of Applied Arts in Písek, and since 2010 he has been an assistant professor and then head of the Sculpture and Space studio at the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art of the University of West Bohemia in Plzeň. His work is marked by an unforced play with sculptural reference and by sharp humour; he works by recycling and recontextualising waste and found material — the bonnets and roofs of old cars, bathtubs, fridges, satellite dishes, bones, wood. Cycles: Menagerie, Bones, Figures, Crosses, Fridges, Auto-moto.

Solo exhibitions (selection): GRINDCORE, Czech Centre London (2025); Roof Reconstruction, Gallery of the City of Plzeň (2024); COMA, Window Gallery Bratislava (2022); Globule, West Bohemian Gallery – U Zvonu, Plzeň (2022); Simulacrum, Kvalitář Prague (2019); Car Park, DEPO2015 Plzeň (2019); On the Tin, Gallery of the City of Plzeň (2014); Forgiving, Pecka Gallery Prague (2011).

Works: Globule, aluminium/steel/polyurethane, 330 cm in diameter, the U Zvonu space, Plzeň (2022); Wind of Destiny, Bugellohe, Germany (2019); NE-STABIL, the park of the House of Art Ostrava (2019). Festivals: Fête des Lumières Lyon, Copenhagen Light Festival, Festival of Lights Zagreb, Lumo Light Festival Oulu, Biela noc Bratislava, Landscape Festival Prague and Jihlava, Sculpture Line, Art in the City 2020 České Budějovice. Represented in the collections of the National Gallery in Prague, GASK Kutná Hora, the West Bohemian Gallery in Plzeň, the Klatovy/Klenová Gallery, the Plzeň City Artotheque, the Marek collection and private collections in the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Switzerland and the USA.