Feriancová, Petra: On the other Artists 2013

Martin Ježek.

Ježek works with found footage, which he then transforms by altering its formal quality yet not changing the image itself. That, which the image depicts is secondary to the physicality of the given material and its potential. One cannot see Ježek's films in the same state of mind more than once. Film is the medium of his performance and also a prop for it. Destruction or the sense of its proximity is thus essential. Medium format film reflects reality, in the right sense of the word — a reality, which becomes the past in the instant it is captured and in the moment it is screened. Together with the author, the viewer is witness to a brief reawakening of something that could be called a relict and he or she is present at the end of it.

 

2013 Václav Stratil.
Monastic Patient 1991-94

This extensive and long­term set follows the author’s obsessive interest in a self­portrait. Vaclav Stratil visits photo studios, where he gets photographed, positioning himself into various poses and expressions, using very simple props. It is in fact a private performance, when the artist comes to the technical photographer, used to only taking passport photos, at best portraying little kids, or newlyweds. Stratil exploits these standard circumstances and does so ad absurdum. Stratil thus turns this not­just­a­bit surprised passport photographer into a bizarre author and the witness to his grotesque metamorphoses. Monastic Patient also has a long­term diary
character. It is about the persistent author’s obsession with himself, which has however been able to generate countless variations to the same theme. Stratil is a performer, he achieves maximum effectivity in minimum expression variations. We are looking at a quixotic hero, or a hero of a dadaistic drama, determined and adamant at the same time. His props and expressions can mock, but not necessarily, the portrait as we know it from the renaissance paintings, but also from various other periods. I see an analogy with Van Gogh, the Japanese Morimura, or with the Russian, Vlad Monroe. The difference between the two latter ones is fundamental. Stratil is a rebel, who doesn’t waste time with formal honing and doesn’t even take the artistic strategies seriously. He improvises with help of clothes pegs, paperclips, scrubbing brushes, artistic and other household goods, that he gets hold of. The standard method of the passport photography stays the same. Vaclav Stratil doesn’t give much thought to the narrative quality or circumstantiality of his portraits. The more we feel, that these photographs are spontanious, urgent and purposeful. 

 

2013 Kvetoslava Fulierová 
Memories and Scores

Kvetoslava Fulierová's exhibition in Bratislava gallery amt project presents photographs from quite an extended period of the author's life depicting daily, also private situations shared with her lifelong partner Július Koller. Thanks to the never ceasing creativity of both of them, these photographs can be regarded as unique artistic exploration.
The photographs displayed in the first room, including the series Ufonaut, are a clear example of such a cooperation, when the initial spontaneous amusement for grandchildren turned later, within J.K. postproduction, into cult work.
The next series, Mirroring, is a long-term topic of Kveta, in which the author finds her reflection in hands or in the background of a photographed (most frequently beloved) person – whether it is the author's mother, the famous photographer Marie Zavadilová, or Július Koller.
The second room of the gallery comprises photographs with almost unnoticeable drawing interventions. They document situations from the flat at Kudlákova Street shortly after Július's death in 2007, from the later period when huge amounts of the archive and work of Július Koller leave the flat as gifts assigned to institutions like SNG, etc. The next series of pictures depicts pieces of furniture which resisted the burden of Július Koller's passion for collecting. The last series with its colourfulness points to the presence. It depicts Kveta's archive; here we become acquainted merely with her own world, while still realising her fundamental affinity with the passion of her lifelong partner – Julo Koller. Kveta's constant need to document often even seemingly meaningless life moments turns today to key works. From each of my visits, Kveta makes several photos, which she gives me at the next encounter. Every single photograph by Kveta has its important and very interesting story and nobody, but the author herself, can interpret these stories in appealing way. 

 

 

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