14.9.2014: Jiří Thýn

Jiří Thýn

Consciousness as a Fundamental Attribute I,II

28th of August - 11th of October 2014

hunt kastner gallery

Bořivojova 85, Praha 3

Curator: Pavel Vančát

Admission: free

Open: mon-sun closed, tue-fri 1 p.m. - 6 p.m., sat 2 p.m. - 6 p.m.

An excerpt from curator's note:

"Jiří Thýn (1977) studied at the Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture in Prague (1999-2005) with an internship at the Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of Vladimir Skrepl (2003) and at TAIK Helsinki (2003). His work crosses the borderlines of photography, video, installation and interventions in public spaces. After many years of gradually refining his own "conceptual lyricism", capturing of reality on the background of the modernist canon. After his spring exhibition at Atelier Josefa Sudka the installation at hunt kastner does attempt to identify further and deeper something which we see only subconsciously in the images but something which is definitely insinuated and discomforting. 

Thýn acts here partly as a destroyer and partly as a stylist, working with the arsenal of contemporary visuality (often with the visuality of the contemporary art world itself) in a way that arises from his own subconscious. The lure which is an essential component of many of Thýn's works, is questioned and disrupted in the automatic gestures of the cutting knife. This unconscious automatism, contrasting to Thýn's usual technical brilliance, re-raises questions about the nature of what he works with and fights again. The first mythical cut, which dismantled the old image apart into the sum of elements, was carried out about a century ago and radically changed our reading of images. Thýn's returning to that moment, in a specific position that combines analysis with dreamy nostalgia."

14.9.2014: Eliška Kyselková, Katarína Támová

Eliška Kyselková, Katarína Támová

Hommage to Monica Cook

11th of September - 15th of October 2014

Fotografic gallery

Stříbrná 2, Praha 1

Admission: free

Open: mon-sun 1 a.m. - 7 p.m.

"A critical contemplation on shallowness of passion and beauty as well as consumerist way of life becomes the central motive of the photographs by Katarína Támová and Eliška Kyselková. Series inspired by paintings of Monica Cook refers to the topic of consumerism in today's world. The theme of ancient bacchanalias is connected with allusion to baroque still life vanities, where the emptiness, ephemerality, destruction and death are the formal and ideological outcome. The photographs are kind of metaphor to the vices of modern society: alienated, narcissistic, without relationships or a real interest in life, longing only for material matters. Almost every picture hides the element of modern times and the emptiness hidden behind the artificial tinsel. The world on the edge of a possible form of destruction, decay or search for one's own identity."

9.9.2014: Andreas Muller-Pohle

Andreas Muller-Pohle

22nd of July - 28th of September 2014

Galerie hlavního města Prahy, Dům fotografie

Revoluční 5, Praha 1

Curator: Pavel Vančát

Admission: 120 Kč full (60 Kč reduced)

Open: tue-sun 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., mon closed

The exhibition presents the work of Berlin-based artist Andreas Müller-Pohle as one of the key European figures questioning both the ontological and representational essence of photography since the mid-1970s, and reflecting the radical change of the technical images through the 1990s till today. The ever-recurring questions of the codification and meaning of information and their dialectic opposition to entropy and chance shows Müller-Pohle's mutual influence with Czech-born philosopher and media theorist Vilém Flusser. The exhibition, conceived as “a select retrospective”, will comprise 18 crucial cycles and projects, starting with the influential Constellations and Transformace through the works adressing the transition from analogue to digital codes up to the recent long-term projects depicting our civilization in a global measure.

Constellations series:
The artist's first photographic cycle intended to distil the principles of avant-garde photography back to primary forms and thematize Modernist photography's perception.

Dacapo I (1988-1991) series:

The Dacapo I cycle details with the aesthetics of kitsch in the form of tourist postcards. Muller-Pohle attains the effect of hallucinogenic alienation by isolating and magnifying motifs using negative transposition.

Albufera (1985) series:

This cycle originated near Valencia, Spain with the objective of disturbing traditional landscape photography by tearing the negatives and arranging then next to one another into new images and times creating new imaginary constellations.

Photobox (2001):

The material created by shredding thousands of photographs, films and framed pictures in the project Entropia makes up the content of this transparent sarcophagus embodying the literal destruction of analogue image.

Entropic cylinders (1996):

The material created by shredding thousands of photographs, films and framed pictures in the project Entropy is compressed into a form that ca be a minimalistic sculpture as well as a briquette.

Signa (since 1991):

These are the photographs of tourist landmarks taken on Polaroid film but instead of following the manufacturer's instructions of separating the positive and negative in 60 seconds, this is done only after returning home. The pictorial icons become fossils.

Cyclograms (1991-1994):

Discarded photographs are shredded into strips and confetti and then thrown in a vessel containing a developer and new photographic paper. The title connotes the idea of recycling: waste is transformed into new images.

Atomic laughter (2002):

On 6th of August 1945, American president Harry S. Truman, seemingly off the record, let out this sentence with laughter, just before his public announcement of the nuclear attack on Japan: "We have spent more than 2 billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history and we have won."

Digital scores (After Neciphore Niepce, 1995-1998):

The author let Niepce's photograph View from a Window at le Gras be translated into an alphanumeric code which found the final typographical form in disturbing the complete code onto eight panels. As if after the apocalyptic Entropia the next natural step was to turn to the incoming digitalisation which was coming to establish a new order of things.

The Danube river project (2005-2006):

The Danube river, interconnecting a large part of Europe, became the subject of the artist photographing along the 2800 km long course of the river directly from its water surface. Muller- Pohle also took water samples in 21 places and had laboratory analysis done on these which made another level of this untraditional culturally-ecological travelogue.

12.9.2014 Veronika Šrek Bromová

Veronika Šrek Bromová

5th of September - 26th of October 2014

Galerie Václava Špály

Národní 30, Praha 1

Curator: Ivan Šrek

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

Open: daily 11 a.m. - 19 p.m.

"In the past six years, from spring 2009 until 2014, my life and work has been significantly transformed by leaving the city and moving to the country, to a former agricultural dwelling which my husband gave name Chaos. He was inspired by book of Timothy Leary named Chaos and Cyberculture. Chaos is located 4 kms from Polička village in eastern part of Czech Republic, 180 kms from Prague and 70 kms from Brno. He are his reasons of abandoning Prague: In the nineties, Prague - city in which the main changes have transpired as part of Czechoslovak Republic - has transformed into normal european metropolis with a lot of fun and never-ending night life. Magical Prague has disappeared. Ashiness of empty night streets without its inhabitants, but only policemen, have been alternated by colours, noises and flow of people and taxi cabs. It stopped being fun and became a money machine.
...This exhibition reflects upon aspects of my life as means of achieving harmony with nature and its qualities. In following my husband I am sharing my opinions on today's era. I have been aspiring to come to this point in life all the time. I am used to live in chaos since ever. What really impacted my way of thinking even my approach to work with technology in early childhood was my time of adolescence spent within my creative parents' workshop for production of collage. But at the same time, my common time spent in nature with friends."

Masters of Chaos (2009/2014), C-print

Two sides of Woofers of the chaos (2009-2014)

Elfs from Chaos (2009-2014), C-print

Spiders from Chaos, 2009-2014 , chinese ink and water on paper.

Expensive eyes (2009-2014), C-print

The material world (2009-2014), C-print.

Saint Pussybabe, the goddess of Chaos (2009-2014), C-print.

without name (2009/2014)

Sunset (2009-2014), C-print

Silencio (2009/2014), C-print

9.9.2014: Poetry of uncontemporary somewhere

Poetry of uncontemporary somewhere

Christoph Grill

until 22nd of October 2014

Gallery of Austrian cultural centre

Jungmanovo náměstí 18, Praha 1

Curator: Ulrich Tragatschnig

Admission: free

Open: mon-fri 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

"The collapse of the Soviet Union crushed several utopias. Most of the fifteen successor states fell into a state of lethargy that was politically dangerous because it could easily be exploited for criminal purposes, unable to reconcile the new democratic and economic demands with old, antiquated patterns of thought. While a few made money out of the new situation, most people fell by the wayside. For ten years now, Christoph Grill has been pursuing the goal of documenting the former Soviet republics and their stony road to political independence, portraying the fight for survival out in the cold. He deploys photography as an instrument for exploiting places, thus following a time-honoured tradition."

(an excerpt from press release)