CAMBRIDGE, MASS.- Eva Koťátková (b. 1982, Prague) takes as her central theme the individual’s relationship to normative social structures and institutions, such as the government, school, the family, and the hospital. An obsessive collector of historical books on psychology, medicine, and social science, images culled from these sources appear time and again in her installations, collages, and drawings. While frequently appearing grotesque, Koťátková ‘s work often strikes a poetic or darkly humorous note. Along with Czech Surrealism and Absurdist fiction, the artist counts slapstick and Charlie Chaplin among her sources of inspiration. Throughout her work, she gives form to the invisible, disciplining force exerted by rules, conventions, and rituals.

For the exhibition Out of Sight in the List Center’s Hayden Gallery, Koťátková is creating several new groups of works—from collages and drawings, to installation and sculpture—which build upon her signature visual vocabulary. For example, three human-scale, metal sculptures installed in the center of the gallery were modeled on book illustrations of old animal traps. One of them called “Out O’Sight” was especially evocative to Koťátková; advertised for being nearly invisible when placed, it lends its name to the exhibition as a whole. Many of the artist’s similar welded works are also structures of entrapment, harking back to antiquated orthopedic appliances, outmoded restraints for mental patients, or medieval torture devices. And yet, “I am not pointing…to some drastic imprisonment or actual physical violence,” she has said, “but rather to the invisible, mental cages that we carry in ourselves supported by inner fears, anxieties, or those that others build around us because we do not fulfill society’s expectations.” Out of Sight is Koťátková’s first solo show in the United States.

Eva Koťátková (b. 1982, Prague) lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona; the New Museum Triennial, New York; Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany; Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin; the 55th Venice Biennale, Italy; Project Arts Centre, Dublin; Wrocław Contemporary Museum, Poland; Modern Art Oxford, England; Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany; and the Lyon Biennial, France, among others. In 2007, at the age of 25, Kot’átková was the youngest artist ever to receive the Jindřich Chalupecký Award for Young Artists in the Czech Republic.

Eva Koťátková: Out of Sight is curated by Henriette Huldisch, Curator, MIT List Visual Arts Center