Jiří Kolář

Jiří Kolář (1914–2002) was a Czech poet and artist who used collage to read and transform images. His materials included books, maps, art reproductions and printed fragments. Cutting, tearing, interweaving or covering changed the meaning of the documents he used. Text became visual matter, while an ordinary object could turn into an unexpected surface for reading.

This practice combined poetic invention with patient method. In his Dictionary of Methods, published in France in 1991, Kolář catalogued numerous approaches to composition without imposing a closed system. Order and chance remained in dialogue. His works, shown at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1975, connect the legacies of Dada and Surrealism with an individual inquiry into the circulation of signs and the construction of visual meaning.