Pavel Korbička: False Angle
False Angle, 2008
Neon tubes, site-specific installation
photo: Pavel Korbička
Nepravý úhel (False Angle), a light installation from 2008 by Pavel Korbička, responds to the architectural space of the House of the Lords of Kunštát, a Renaissance palace built on the site of a medieval urban development in Brno. The basic geometric composition of two lines of coloured neon tubes reveals the unexpected irregularity and inaccuracy of the spatial design of the vault above the staircase, which, according to the usual principles of Renaissance architecture, should be based on a symmetrical and rectangular layout. Since historic reconstructions needed to build on the original structure, the ideal design was adapted to the possibilities and conditions of the given location and its proportions. Korbička’s installation opens a dialogue with the scale and layout of this space and highlights the shifts towards new contexts and relationships.
Light interventions in the interiors or exteriors of (predominantly historic) urban architecture redefining spatial contexts are one of the long-standing themes in Pavel Korbička’s work. Since the early 2000s, he has been realizing his interventions with minimal means, mostly formulated by several horizontal, vertical, or diagonal lines responding to the specific character of a given place. Neon tubes, with their light and colour effects transforming our perception and experiencing of space, create a contrast to the rationally conceived geometric composition and interact with the immaterial and intangible space that we can also feel through our own physical experience and movement. The act of movement plays an important role in the perception of Korbička’s works. Moving closer and further away, the viewer becomes one of the actors in the work, entering into its spatial relationships based on their position.
These works include, for example, the early installation Hladina (Level, 2003) in the now defunct Katakomby Gallery in Brno, with blue neon lines marking a plane in the uneven terrain of underground corridors; another one was the installation North Line (2008), created on the slope of Špilberk Castle in Brno as part of the first edition of the Sculptures in the Streets festival (now Brno Art Open). Among more recent works were the installations Attribute (2019) from the Pavilion 02 exhibition in Venice, Metaphors (2021) at Villa Cernigliaro, Sordevolo, Italy, Boží mlýny (The Mills of God, 2019) at the Signal Festival in Prague, and Point (2023) at the Besední dům in Brno. In recent years, Korbička has repeatedly introduced his works into sacred architecture, where his elementary installations communicate meanings associated with the spiritual qualities of the place and enhance them. These included, for example, an intervention in the partially preserved presbytery of the Rosa Coeli former monastery in Dolní Kounice (2012) as well as the more recent works Strukturace prostoru (Structuring Space) at the House of Arts in Opava – in the former Church of St. Wenceslas (2020), in Via Adventus (2024 and 2025) in the Church of St. James in Brno, and the installation Structuring Space (2025) in the Church of St. Lawrence in Klatovy.
Besides that, Pavel Korbička creates spatial installations – corridors made of polycarbonate panels and lit in different colours, which visitors can enter and walk through. Shaping and forming the space, the corridors change the usual way people move or orient themselves, and the special lighting and optical conditions they provide transform our perception, and sometimes even elicit a feeling of instability and disorientation. At the same time, the artist also creates installations that he calls dance calligraphy – these transcribe the records of dance movement into a three-dimensional light drawing made of bent neon tubes. In 2019, these two aspects of Korbička’s work were presented at his solo exhibition Deflection at the House of Arts Brno.
Pavel Korbička (born 1972 in Brno) studied applied painting at the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Brno between 1987–1992. From 1992–1998, he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in the Sculpture–Space–Installation Studio of Stanislav Kolíbal and the Conceptual Tendencies Studio of Miloš Šejn. Since 1998, he has been working as assistant professor, and now as associate professor – co-head of the Spatial Design Studio of Creation at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology.
