CGD

Johan Pertl originally studied industrial design. He discovered glass during a school trip to a glassworks in Jablonec nad Nisou. "When I saw the glassmaker blowing into the mould and a glass decoration came out on the other side, clear and perfect, it blew me away," recalls Johan Pertl. After his graduation, the native of Havlíčkův Brod gained experience in the DECHEM studio, which eventually motivated him to dedicate himself to glass professionally and apply to AAAD. In Rony Plesl's studio he was most interested in glass melting and experimenting with this technique. His passion for glass led him to found his own glassworks in Nová Ves near Světlá nad Sázavou, which he runs together with his classmate and friend Tomáš Kučera. "We enjoy removing melted sculpture off its pedestal and giving it a practical dimension so that its owners can easily interact with it. They put their coffee on the coffee table, put their books in the chest of drawers and so on. I don't really like inventing complicated things. I sure need the knowledge to melt glass, but the rest is my intuition," he says. 

As a recent graduate of the glass studio at AAAD, Johan Pertl made a bright debut with several interesting projects, which he presented at the last edition of the Designblok 2022 festival. In the Diploma selection, an international competition for graduates, Johan Pertl presented the Monumentality object, which explores the theme of apparent size and its effect on the viewer. In the sculptural table, Pertl explored the contrast between melted crystal glass and red marble, the fragility of these paradoxically very heavy materials, and feelings of threat and imbalance. A clear glass sphere with a cut top balanced artfully on a base of precious stone and stirred strong emotions (not only) in the competition jury. Pertl received second place for his impressive project. 

Leading European galleries were impressed by Pertl’s Utopia coffee tables made of cast glass, which he showed at the festival in a joint presentation with Tomáš Kučera. The transparent tables made of one piece of glass are the first-ever presentation of Pertl's innovative technology of cast glass. The author experimented with it for several months in his glassworks near Světlá nad Sázavou before he achieved a reduction in the amount of material and energy needed to melt and cool the glass in the furnace. By trial and error, he spent hundreds of hours researching, but the results of his efforts are promising. He plans to continue to push the innovative technology and use it to create more fascinating works on the border of art and design.   

Eva Slunečková