Artist and critic Olaf Hanel has died at the age of 79

source: www.pametnaroda.cz

Prague - Artist, curator, and educator Olaf Hanel passed away at the age of 79 on Thursday, a prominent figure in action and conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s. He was a member of the Cross Club of Pure Humor without Jokes and the author of album covers for the group The Plastic People of the Universe. As a signatory of Charter 77, he was forced to emigrate in 1979 during the Asanace event. Today, his death was reported on the website of Divadelní noviny and on social media by, among others, the Kampa Museum, where Hanel had an exhibition at the turn of last year and this year.

Olaf Hanel was born in 1943 in Prague and grew up in Světlá nad Sázavou. Vysočina became the site of many of his land art activities. Even as a student, he met Jan Steklík and Karel Nepraš, directors of the Cross Club of Pure Humor without Jokes, and thus was from the beginning part of the avant-garde community.

From 1967 to 1971, he ran a gallery in Havlíčkův Brod. After ideological purges, he worked as a film shooter or a stoker in a children's sanatorium. He signed Charter 77 and emigrated to Canada during the Asanace event. He returned home in 1991 and became the curator of the Czech Museum of Fine Arts in Prague. In his later years, he lived in Lysá nad Labem.

Hanel had been exhibiting individually since 1969. Initially, as an author of drawn jokes, he conceived and performed performances for the community around the Cross Club of Pure Humor without Jokes, where he held the position of head of the travel agency of the Cross Club. He even rented a bus and organized several expeditions; during the Tribute to Bright Stars event, he replicated the constellation of the spring sky with a system of 120 fires, thus creating a territory outlined by a fiery trail that was meant to be a temporary autonomous zone for all participants.

The mission of patriotic trips to the sources of the Vltava River and to Blaník was to awaken the mythical Blaník knights and to breathe life into the cults of the Czech nation. The playful dadaism and penchant for absurdity of table societies like that of the Cross Club was one form of entertainment during normalization.

Olaf Hanel worked with chance; some works are actual records of actions, while others are their mystifying reconstructions. Hanel liked to use metal and various household items: mouse traps, thimbles, buckets, garden mesh. From these, he accumulated endless columns, connections between heaven and earth, or created suitcases full of emptiness. In France, he worked with prints from canal lids. He painted images with circular motifs in acrylic on canvas or on fabric or tablecloths.

During his years in exile, he created several album covers for the group The Plastic People of the Universe. In 2004 and 2012, he designed the scenery for the concerts of the Plastic People at the Archa Theatre for the Easter Passion Play.