dvorak sec contemporary: Vendula Chalánková

Vendula Chalánková

Love versus Mamon

14.4.2015 - 12.5.2015

dvorak sec contemporary

Dlouhá 5, Praha 1

Mon-Fri: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat: 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Admission: free

Vendula Chalánková, Zabíjačka, 2004

Vendula Chalánková, Zabíjačka, 2004

Vendula Chalánková: SMS, 2003-2004.

Vendula Chalánková: Abstrakce, 2015.

Vendula Chalánková: Komiks, 2015.

Vendula Chalánková, Houby, 2012.

Vendula Chalánková, Handmade Photoshop Basic, 2013.

Vendula Chalánková, Handmade Photoshop Basic, 2013.

Vendula Chalánková, Happy Birthday, Jeff Koons 2009.

Vendula Chalánková, Abstrakce, 2015.

Vendula Chalánková, DIY HD 3D, 2013.

Vendula Chalánková, Gauč, 2008.

Vendula Chalánková, DIY HD 3D, 2013.

Galerie Fotografic: Kristýna Erbenová

Kristýna Erbenová

In the Darkless

12th of May - 21st of June 2015

Fotografic gallery

Stříbrná 2, Praha 1

Admission: voluntary

Open: mon - tue 1 a.m. - 6 p.m., thu - sun 1 a.m. - 6 p.m.


In the circles of the orbits, in the rhythm of years, months and days, we get used to the order which remains unrecognised. During the day, we face the impression that we’re able to grasp the reality, to sense, to know, to be convinced that what we see is not deceptive. Nightfall bewilders us, seduces us into blindness, into giving up the desire to look deeper. And yet, it’s in the darkness that things are born and die; it’s in the night that the heavenly signs are brought out, according to which man has directed his steps for thousands of years. Darkness is only a lack of light. If we surpass our limitations and take a look around, we can see the enchanting colours and shapes that have stopped in the midnight calmness. These are the remnants of light, one four-hundred-thousandth of the day’s sunshine. Photographs that denied the darkness. To experience the possibility of making the invisible visible. The landscape and man in the unseen, yet real light. All photographs in this series were taken at night, using only the moonlight and medium format film material.

Kristyna Erbenová (1987), belongs to the youngest generation of photographers with international success. Currently student of the master’s program at the ITF Silesian University in Opava, she also graduated in Film Studies and English Philology at Palacky University in Olomouc. Photos of Kristyna are symptomatic of an extraordinary sense of melancholy and perfect technical execution (classical square photographic material). She has participated in numerous photographic exhibitions and festivals at home and abroad and her work has been positively reflected by press and media.

Gallery UM: B.H.G. - Black Hole Generation

B.H.G. (Black Hole Generation)

David Krňanský, Martin Lukáč, Martin Nytra, Julius Reichel

24.4.2014 - 30.5.2015

Gallery UM

Nám. Jana Palacha 80, Prague 1

Opening hours: Mon-Sat 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Admission: free

Prague City Gallery Startup: Tereza Fišerová

Tereza Fišerová

7.5..2015 - 5.7.2015

Start up Gallery , Golden Ring House

Týnská 6, Prague 1

Opening hours: Tue-Sun 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Admission: free

The output of Tereza Fišerová (b. in Plzeň, 1988) stems from the process of overcoming diverse personal impediments. Her works respond to real-life situations affecting the human being and defying their previous experience. In her earlier performances, including e.g. the actions named Appearance (2010), orDon’t disturb my circles (2012), she tested the limits of her physical capacities, “whipping herself up” to higher levels of performance. She staged contests involving objects of artistic value, letting the love-hate relationship between artist and work transpire into her assumed role as a coach. Likewise built on a real-life base is her current site-specific installation-exhibit entitled Parallel Universe. Tereza drew inspiration there from an extraordinary experience she had at a specific place in Plzeň, associated with the perception of an alternative reality, which was at that point of time induced by an optical illusion. Here she has tried to transfer it to gallery space. “What comes into existence is an entirely different place, one where two different worlds meet in time and space. A complex theme, one which would perhaps be more readily approachable by way of scientific analysis, which I tackle in a way bordering on poetry,” the artist comments her work.

Tereza Fišerová studied for a bachelor’s degree at Adéla Matasová’s studio, University of Western Bohemia in Plzeň, and obtained a master’s degree from the studio of Federico Díaz and David Kořínek at the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague.

Collorado-Mansfeld Palace: Anežka Hošková, Jakub Hošek: SuperImpositions

Anežka Hošková, Jakub Hošek, Nik Timková

SuperImpositions

1.4.2014 - 31.5.2015

Colorrado-Mansfeld Palace

Karlova 2, Prague 1

Opening hours: Tue-Sun 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Curator: Monika Doležalová

Admission: 60 Kč full, 30 Kč reduced

The brother-sister artist duo Jakub Hošek and Anežka Hošková together with Nik Timková embody the English phrase which is often used by marketing departments of film studios: expect the unexpected. They live in constant motion, traveling – especially Jakub and Nik – between their various places of residence in international cities, often going directly from the studio to concerts which they organize together with Štěpán Bolf, brother of the painter Josef Bolf, as the A.M.180 Collective. They often do not show up in time (or at all) at an agreed meeting, but their work presented at exhibitions is perfect.

All of them are significant drivers of local visual culture and they stand out in the local community of artists. They widely share their concept of the aesthetics and the mix of subcultures, in which they are interested, with the other people on social networks, in their production and at music events.

When you meet them in the street, based on fashion creations you might think that you have met a cosplay from a manga comic cartoon. A.M.180’s musical events, primarily the Creepy Teepee Festival in Kutná Hora, have for a long term presented new projects and bands, from which world stars may arise in a couple of years. Let us remember the concert of Future Islands at Club 007 in Strahov five years ago where they played for 50 people. Following their last year’s album Singles and their appearance on the David Letterman talk show they have suddenly become world-renowned musicians who go on tour with an endless string of sold-out concerts, including their last year’s performance at the Lucerna Music Bar in Prague.

They are genuine trendsetters. They relentlessly bring about world culture in real time to the sleepy Czech lands which chronically lag behind. However, it is interesting to watch how few people are interested in it at the given moment and how they are able to accept it only with a delay through online or printed media. Instead, a certain stereotype has been created as regards the perception of this trio, as evidenced by television programmers and filmmakers who under pressure are trying to define them as hipsters without knowing that they behave this way naturally and not since the term hipster has arrived to the Czech lands about two years after it was already out in the world.

In recent years the artists have expanded their existing manifestos by the post-Internet aesthetics. They have begun to project mechanisms and simple imagination known from the computer environment and the web, as can be seen in Intervention 3 of Superimpositions at the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace where they have prepared a series of disparate objects presenting the current stage of artistic development of each of them. At the same time they have not lost anything from their playfulness and irony, which make them different from the ubiquitous contemplative, serious and sophisticated approach to art.

The term Superimpositions, originally the title of a soundtrack and album by the Milano musician Lorenzo Senni, refers to a technique in which a layer is imposed on the existing surface. It is used as a term for intervention of objects overlaying the piano nobile of the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace and as an expression of their layering related more to the technique rather than to the content.

Gallery Fotografic: Bára Bálková

Bára Bálková

From nowhere to nowhere

4th of May - 10th of May 2015

Fotografic gallery

Stříbrná 2, Praha 1

Admission: voluntary

Open: mon - tue 1 a.m. - 6 p.m., thu - sun 1 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Barbora Balkova (1978, AVU Prague, art studio of Veronika Bromova) in her art work moves freely between photography, art objects and painting. The „From Nowhere To Nowhere“ exhibition is featuring her newest mechanic-acoustic object. It is a kinetic installation consisting of a spinning platform in the form of a miniature running track. On an imaginary race course we see statues of despotic leaders who by their actions affected the course of  the past century, impacting thus lives of millions of people. First the manipulators, now they are becoming pawns on the board themselves.
The artist rendered the dictators as rocking horses with typical horse-riding attributes, a saddle, a bridle, shackles, and placed them on a round platform into the running tracks. Hitler, Mao Zedong, Stalin and Kim Jong-un thus move on and on, just like the rocking horses move nonsensically around on a carousel.
In this context they  become manipulated figures themselves who, by their embarrassing positions, beg the viewer to be subjugated to his/her will, to play with them or simply to demonstrate the line of a good taste related to any manipulation of people.
The installation is completed by a thirteen minutes long sound loop compiling human voices, in which on the backdrop of a sport event we can recognise a life story of an individual. On a  „playground“ thus an individual life permeates the context of history.
The spinning platform, moved by electric engine, is 3m in diameter, the hyper-realistic statues are life-size. The opening will be accompanied by ambient music performance by Patrik Pelauch and his trumpet. The show is supported by Raiffeisen Bank.

Gallery of Václav Špála: Jan Bačkovský

Jan Bačkovský


Images

6.3.2014 - 26.4.2015

Václav Špála Gallery

Národní 30, Prague 1

Opening hours: daily 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Admission: 40 Kč full, 20 Kč reduced (students), free for seniors and art students

Inside, 2013.

List, 2015.

Skin, 2011.

Day, 2015.

Sweater, 2015.

I haven't been here yet, 2013.

Galerie Nová Síň: Milan Knížák

Milan Knížák

Stories

22.4.2014 - 17.5.2015

Nová Síň Gallery

Voršilská 139/3, Prague 1

Opening hours: Tue-Sun 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Admission: 20 Kč full, 10 Kč reduced

From the current flooding of sophisticated, mostly site-specific installations pretending interconnectedness with global issues and abstract paintings and objects, where it is difficult to read some content, a desire to paint simple images with a simple story has spontaneously revealed itself.

But I cannot paint a common story with its simple beauty, and so I use words, passwords, ciphers, symbols in my paintings and above all I am not closing myself into themes which speaks only of human society.

A large part of my work consists of unidentified creatures (sometimes not even resembling creatures), moreover representing the impossible life forms. Human pride scares me which is a precursor of ruthlessness and loss of communication and therefore my paintings are all about relationships. Some of them I called Abstract comics, which is a contradiction in terms, but it seemed appropriate. Finally, I returned to the "stories" of which I can present only a part in this small gallery.

Flowers, 2013.

It's me, 2010.

Why did you stop?, 2009.

Comics II, 2014.

Soul, 2012.

AHAE - Finished 31.8.2014

AHAE - Finished 31.8.2014