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A typographer by training, Košek first became a fairly conventional artist. When he fell into psychosis, he began to produce works as radical as poetic. Convinced that he plays a decisive role in the sequencing of the world, he spends his time at his window, recording his observations - meteorology, bird flights, insignificant facts - and aggregating them into diagrams supposed to ward off chaos. For fifteen years and across the world, from the Palais de Tokyo to the Maison Rouge, from the MONA (Australia) to the DOX in Prague and The Rencontres d’Arles, his Sibylline maps have been constantly interrogating.

portrait - © © Mario del Curto, christian berst — art brut
Date 1949 — 2015
Country Czech Republic

Zdeněk Košek worked as a typographer and drew caricatures and satirical cartoons for regional magazines and newspapers. A self-taught artist, he has also produced a number of more or less conventional paintings. In the 1980s a deep psychological trauma gradually changed his perception of the world; he was diagnosed as psychotic and had to retire in 1989. From then on he would produce a work radically different from his previous paintings.

Meteorology and weather are the main themes of his works on paper. Košek was convinced that he played a determining role at heart of the great ruling of the world. He saw himself as a kind of power station, continuously receiving and emitting multitudes of information. He thought that his duty was to master the meteorological phenomena.

“I mastered not only the time but also politics, I named Vaclav Havel president. […] I thought I was immortal”.
He spent his days in front of the window, convinced that he could provoke or control the weather, writing down everything that was happening around him : the direction of the wind, the flight of the birds, sounds, the changes on temperature, different combinations of numbers, letters and chemical elements, etc. He would draw on notebooks,  maps, atlas or old magazines. His diagrams served him as a direct means to influence weather - an indispensable ritual dictated to him, to which he abandoned himself in order to avoid his biggest fear, the irreversible chaos. By sticking his schemes onto the window of his apartment, he communicated with birds, which he believed to be superior to man.

For its reopening in 2012, the Palais de Tokyo (Paris) has devoted an exhibition to him. Zdeněk Košek has also recently been exhibited twice at the Maison rouge: Le Mur, works from the Antoine de Galbert collection and art brut, abcd/Bruno Decharme collection, then in Le bord des Mondes at the Palais de Tokyo in 2015.

Artworks
Please contact us to inquire about the available works.
untitled - © christian berst — art brut
untitled, 1990
7.48 x 5.51 in
untitled - © christian berst — art brut
untitled, 1985
7.87 x 11.42 in
untitled - © christian berst — art brut
untitled, 1990
7.48 x 5.51 in
untitled - © christian berst — art brut
untitled, 1991
7.48 x 5.51 in
untitled - © christian berst — art brut
untitled, 1990
5.51 x 7.48 in
untitled - © christian berst — art brut
untitled, 1990
7.48 x 5.51 in
Catalog
Zdeněk Košek dominus mundi
Zdeněk Košek : dominus mundi - © christian berst — art brut

Texts : Barbara Safarova, Jaromír Typlt, Manuel Anceau
Foreword : Christian Berst
Catalog published to mark the exhibition zdeněk košek : dominus mundi, from september 3rd to october 10th, 2020.

Exhibitions
storm situation with zdeněk košek
art brut prague gallery. From March 7 to 30, 2024.
Everybody Talks About the Weather:
with works by Košek, Fondazione Prada, Venezia. From May 17, 2023 to January 3, 1.
Culturas Paralelas:
works from the treger saint silvestre collection, Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto, Portugal. From February 17 to April 22, 2023.
31553580 (obsessie/obsession) :
numbers and schedules, museum van de geest, Haarlem. From September 21 to December 21, 2022.
débordement #1: the pathfinders
by anaël pigeat & yvannoé krüger, the bridge + main gallery. From November 25, 2021 to January 16, 2022.
View more
Eureka !
Centro de arte Oliva, Portugal. From July 23, 2021 to August 27, 2022.
Photo Brut
Coll. Bruno Decharme & cie, American Folk Art Museum, New York. From January 24 to June 6, 2021.
Fiac
#47, cancelled. From October 21 to 25, 2020.
Zdenek Kosek
dominus mundi, at the gallery. From September 3 to October 10, 2020.
Photo Brut
coll. Bruno Decharme & cie, Rencontre d'Arles. From July 1 to September 22, 2019.
beyond
on the edge of the visible and the invisible, at the gallery. From March 7 to April 13, 2019.
L’envol
Maison Rouge, Paris. From June 16 to October 28, 2018.
do the write thing 2
read between the lines, at the gallery. From April 26 to June 2, 2018.
The Museum of everything
Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania. From June 17, 2017 to April 2, 2018.
in abstracto
at the gallery. From June 8 to July 15, 2017.
Art Brut
A Story of Individual Mythologies, Treger Saint Silvestre Collection, Portugal. From January 1 to February 26, 2017.
Brut Now
art brut in the technological era, Belfort Museums . From October 29, 2016 to January 16, 2017.
Biennale de l’Image Possible
Liège, Belgique. From August 20 to October 16, 2016.
Drawing Now 2016
Carreau du temple, Paris. From March 30 to April 3, 2016.
Du nombril au cosmos
autour de la collection abcd/ Bruno Decharme, Art et Marges museum, Bruxelles. From September 25, 2015 to January 24, 2016.
PreTENse
at the Gallery. From September 12 to October 10, 2015.
Galeristes à l’oeuvre
by Eva Hober, Eva Hober Gallery. From April 23 to June 6, 2015.
Art brut live
DOX centre for contemporary art, Praha. From March 27 to August 17, 2015.
Drawing Now 2015
Carreau du Temple, Paris. From March 25 to 29, 2015.
Le Bord des Mondes
Palais de Tokyo, Paris. From February 18 to May 17, 2015.
do the write thing
read between the lines, new york gallery. From October 30 to December 21, 2014.
art brut masterpieces and discoveries
carte blanche à bruno decharme, at the gallery. From October 21 to November 29, 2014.
Art brut
ABCD Collection / Bruno Decharme, la Maison rouge, Paris. From October 17, 2014 to January 18, 2015.
beyond the boundaries season 2012
discoveries and recent acquisitions. From September 8 to October 13, 2012.
Module
Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent Fondation, Palais de Tokyo, Paris. From April 20 to June 4, 2012.
Janko Domsic and Zdenek Košek
creators of the sky and earth, Institut français de Prague. From June 15 to September 9, 2006.
exhibition view of *débordement #1 : les révélateurs* curated by Anaël Pigeat and Yvannoé Krüger, the bridge + christian berst art brut, Paris, 2021 - © christian berst — art brut
Exhibition view of *zdeněk košek : dominus mundi*, christian berst art brut, Paris, 2020 - © ©christian berst art brut, christian berst — art brut
Exhibition view of *Photo Brut, Bruno Decharme & compagnie collection*, Mécanique Générale, Arles, 2019 - © © Bruno Decharme & compagnie collection, christian berst — art brut
exhibition view of *the beyond : on the edge of the visible and the invisible*, christian berst art brut, paris, 2019. - © christian berst art brut, photo: elena groud, christian berst — art brut
Press review
La galerie Art brut Praha expose « ce que le cerveau humain est capable de faire »
Anaïs Raimbault, Radio Prague International. October 29, 2022.
les révélateurs
Damien Aubel, Transfuge. January 1, 2022.
Fantastic Fixation in ‘Photo Brut’
J. Hoberman, The New York Review. April 25, 2021.
Art brut : Zdenek Košek, maître du monde
Caustic Media. September 25, 2020.
Býval to ústecký podivín, dnes je svetovým tvurcem art brut. Díla Zdenka Koška práve vystavují v Paríži
Petr Šrámek, Ceský Rozhlas. September 24, 2020.
View more
Zdenek Košek : dominus mundi
Bénédicte Philippe, Télérama Sortir. September 17, 2020.
výstava
Jan H. Vitvar, Respekt. September 15, 2020.
is there such a thing as outsider photography?
Claire Margat, Artpress. May 22, 2020.
que reste-t-il de la vogue de l’art brut
Roxana Azimi, Quotidien De L’art. September 12, 2019.
Arles 6 : Photographie brute, vers un peu de cohérence
Marc Lenot, Amateur D’art, Par Lunettes Rouges. September 4, 2019.
Artpress à Arles. épisode 3
Charles-Arthur Boyer, Artpress. July 18, 2019.
Photo / Brut - Flammarion
Alain Vollerin, Blog Des Arts. July 13, 2019.
Dix expos à ne pas rater aux Rencontres d’Arles 2019
Nathalie Marchetti, L’express. July 12, 2019.
Rencontres d’Arles 2019 : Brutale est la Photo/Brut
Coline Olsina, Blind. July 7, 2019.
“Photo Brut” de décalages
Clémentine Mercier, Libération. July 5, 2019.
in abstracto
Bénédicte Philippe, Télérama Sortir. July 9, 2017.
de l’art brut art high-tech
Stéphanie Lemoine, L’oeil. January 10, 2017.
art brut la fête des fous
Isabelle Martin-Anderson, Silver Age. July 1, 2016.
Zem?el mali?, jenž ?idil sv?tové po?asi
Jan H. Vitvar, Respekt. January 2, 2016.
L’art brut à contre courant
Aurelie Romanacce, Pascaline Vallee Et Patrick Le Fur, Arts Magazine. August 29, 2014.
Collections
Musée national d’art moderne (Pompidou)
France
Antoine Frérot collection
France
abcd / Bruno Decharme collection
France
Treger Saint Silvestre collection
Portugal
Antoine de Galbert collection
France
View more
Amr Shaker collection
Switzerland
Emmanuelle and Guy Delcourt collection
France
Videos
Teaser - Zdeněk Košek : dominus mundi
Video : © abcd / Bruno Decharme. Full version : 15 minutes. 2005
Language French
trailer - débordement #1 : les révélateurs / the pathfinders
video - the exhibition presented by the curators
Zdenek Košek

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