Matej Krén's work is remarkable for its exceptional scope. In recent years his distinctive
approach to sculpture, object, installation, drawing, print, painting, action art, film, music,
sound and word has attracted attention at many prestigious international art shows.
His work not only touches on very contemporary problems, such as erasing the boundaries between
reality and fiction, memory and the present, but also on classic themes in art - the relation
between inner and outer, the part and the whole. Typical of his work is a searching for
a complexity of content expressed in a monumental and comprehensible language.
Matej Krén was born in 1958 in Trenčín. After graduating from the Applied Arts Secondary School in Bratislava he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava from 1977-81, and from 1981-1985 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. As a student in Prague he successfully entered the International Student Exhibition in Kobe, Japan, where his work received the Honor Award (1985). Before 1989 he participated in many unofficial exhibitions, such as Artprospekt, Posun artefaktu, Terén, etc. An exhibition by a group of Bratislava-based artists entitled Basement (1989) received broader attention from the public. From 1986 to 1988 he worked in the Bratři v triku film studio at Barrandov, making the animated film That's a Movie, which after 1989 was screened at a number of international film festivals in Paris, Berlin, Trenčianske Teplice and in Huesca in Spain, where it won the main prize, the Danzante de Oro (1991).
Following the events of November 1989 he helped to transform the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, followed by a brief period of teaching there.
Since the beginning of the 1990s he has had exhibitions in major cities in Europe and overseas (Amsterdam, Berlin, Chicago, Paris, Philadelphia, Prague, Seoul, Vienna, etc.). In 1992 and 1993 he accepted an invitation to the international Creativity Studio in the Manufacture Nationale de Sévres in Paris, where he worked on projects using porcelain processed in a novel way. He has also received several international awards. For example in 1994 at the Bienal de Sao Paolo he won both main prizes, the Critics' Prize and the Viewers' Prize; in 1995 his work won the main prize in the international art competition Promotion of the Arts, organised by UNESCO in Paris. In the same year the American Pollock-Krasner Foundation gave him a grant, and he received an award from the Slovak Minister of Culture for his successful representation of Slovak art abroad.
In 1998 he installed a "tower of books" entitled Idiom in the entrance hall of the Prague Municipal Library. His rotunda made of books, Gravity Mixer, became a key part of the Czech pavilion at EXPO 2000 in Hanover. In 2004 he was chosen to represent Slovak art as part of the travelling exhibition project The New Ten, conceived as a symbolic joining with the European Union in the field of contemporary art. The exhibition commences in Duisburg in Germany and will travel to several major European metropolises.
His work is also featured in many art collections at home and abroad.
The artist currently lives and works in Prague.
1981-84
> AXIS, Realization and unofficial presentation of the film, Czechoslovakia
> ART PROSPECT, GROUND, SHIFT OF ARTEFACT, VERNISSAGE, unofficial exhibitions,
performances and Art activities, Czechoslovakia
1985
> STUDENT'S INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, Kobe, Japan
1986
> 8. INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC MUSIC "LUIGI RUSSOLO" Italy
1987
> ETC., realization of the film (Autobiografical Fiction), Czechoslovakia
> IN THE TIME, exhibition of photographs, Prague, Czechoslovakia
> MUSIC PROJECTS for exhibitions of friends of Matej Kren
1988
> METAMORPHOSIS, one-man exhibition, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia
> HOMMAGE Á KASSAK, Budapest, Hungary
> NEW SLOVAK PHOTOGRAPHY, Bratislava - Moscow - Warsaw
> FESTIVAL OF CZECHOSLOVAK AND HUNGARIAN EXPERIMENTAL ART, Nové Zámky,
Czechoslovakia
> FESTIVAL OF YOUNG ARTISTS, Moscow, U.S.S.R
1989
> INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL - OBERHAUSEN, presentation of the film
>Etc.< , Germany
> BASEMENT, unofficial exhibition of installations, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia
1990
> POUR FÉLICITER, Cháteauroux, France
> THAT'S A MOVIE, exhibition of project and drawings, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia
> JERICHO II, First International Meeting of Young Artists from East
and West, Paris - Bratislava
> ARTISTES TCHEQUES ET SLOVAQUES 1960-1990, Paris, France
> PAINTINGS 1989-1990, one-man exhibition, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia
1991
> BERLINALE '91, 41. International Film Festival, presentation of the
film "That 's a movie", Berlin, Germany
> 6 + 7, Municipal Gallery Bratislava, Czechoslovakia
> DREAM OF A MUSEUM, Žilina - Brno, Czechoslovakia
> NACHBARN, Nuremberg, Germany
> ACTION ART, Gallery Mánes, Prague, Czechoslovakia
> DAS OBJEKT, Oberwart, Austria
> THAT'S A MOVIE, International Film Festival, Huesca, Spain
1992
> HILLS AND MILLS, Amsterdam, Holland
> ZWISCHEN OBJEKT UND INSTALLATION, Dortumund, Germany
> GALLERY LARA VINCY, one-man exhibition, Paris, France
> MANUFACTURE NATIONALE DE SEVRES, long-term stay in "Studio of
Creativity, realization of the project: VASE (recycled porcelain), France
> POUR LA POÉSIE - POÉTES PLASTICIENS, Paris, France
> FIAC '92, Grand Palais, collaboration with the Gallery1900-2000, Paris,
France
> 3. BIENNALE INTERNATIONALE DU FILM SUR L'ART, Centre Georges Pompidou,
presentation of the film ETC. Paris, France
> PARKING, one-man exhibition, Quai de la Gare, Paris, France
1993
> GALERY DE POCHE, one-man exhibition, Paris, France
> L'HOTEL, one-man exhibition, Paris, France
> EXPO '93, exhibition of paintings in the national exposition, Seoul,
South Korea
> MANUFACTURE NATIONALE DE SÉVRES, stay in the "Studio of Creativity",
realization of the project UNIVERS - NAISSANCE D'UN PLAT and FIVE FINGER
VASES
> BETWEEN IMAGE AND VISION (New slovak photography), Edinburgh - Scotland,
Bremen, Berlin - Germany
1994
> L'ESPRIT DU COLLECTIONNEUR, (with Huang Yong Ping), Fondation Cartier
pour I'art contemporain, Paris, France
> WORKS ON PAPER, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, USA
> 22. INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL OF SAO PAULO, Brasil
> DER RISS IM RAUM, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
1995
> GALLERY 1900-2000, One-man exhibition, Paris, France
> PROMOTION OF THE ARTS 1995, UNESCO, Paris, France
> FRANCE LOISIRES, one-man exhibition, Paris, France
> BEYOND BELIEF, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, USA
1996
> BEYOND BELIEF, Allen Memorial Museum, Oberlin, USA
> GALLERY JIRI SVESTKA, one-man exhibition, Prague, Czech Republic
> BEYOND BELIEF, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, USA
> DAWN OF MAGICIANS, National Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
1997
> ZUR TRANSFORMATION EINES ORTES, Kunsthalle, Wien, Austria
1998
> IDIOM, long-term installation in Prague municipal library, Czech Republic
2000
> CINEMA, one-man exhibition, Gallery Quai de la Gare, Paris, France
> GRAVITY MIXER, EXPO 2000, sculpture installation in the pavilion of
Czech republic, Hannover, Germany
> SLOVAK ART 1900 - 2000, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovak
Republic
2001
> SLOVAK PHOTOGRAPHY 1925-2000, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovak Republic and City gallery Prague, Czech Republic
2002
> SLOVAK VISUAL ARTS 1970 - 1985, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovak Republic
2003
> VIRTUAL ROCK GARDEN / PCESTOPISY, one-man exhibition, Gallery Of Czech Parliament, Prague, Czech Republic
2004
> PASSAGE, Municipal Gallery Bratislava, Slovak Republic
> THE NEW TEN, Museum Küppersmühle, Duisburg, Germany, Vienna Künstlerhaus,
Wien, Austria
2005
> THE NEW TEN, Kunsthalle, Mannheim, Germany
> THE NEW TEN, The Museum of Modern Art, Oostende, Belgium
> PASSAGE, Dům umění, Brno, Czech Republic
> BEAUTY AND THE BOOK, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
2006
> FOURTH INTERNATIONAL ARTIST'S BOOK EXHIBITION, Székesfehérvár, Hungary
> BOOK CELL, Centro de Arte Moderna - Foundation Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal