Turn Down

6.4.2011 - 5.6.2011

The exhibitions so far held at the Wannieck Gallery have presented mainly paintings based on the painter’s brushwork, often with a strong expressive charge, or works that are an excellent presentation of the traditional painting craft. Less represented have been the so-called conceptual or concept works, or works of a reductive nature responding to or developing the legacy of modern avant-gardes.
The works of thus oriented artists are the basis of our upcoming exhibition. We can state, with a little bit of exaggeration, that the impressiveness of a work of art moves from the exhibited artefact more to the thought context of what we know about the art and how we think about it. They are works of art at the beginning of which there is a concept, i.e. an idea which then penetrates the works and becomes a very important part thereof. This can often lead to the reduction of art means, their simplification or suppression. Close to them are also the works of authors who follow up on or otherwise respond to the legacy of geometrical abstraction, concrete art, minimalism and other abstract art movements of the 1950s and 1960s, modifying or transforming their meaning within the context of the present day. The relationship with conceptual thinking, though removed from that of Kosuth of the 1960s, which strove for the maximum dematerialization of art, can also often be seen in these artists.
Therefore, it can generally be noted that a considerable part of contemporary art is conceptual in terms of the existence of a thought construct more or less emerging to the surface, uniting and conditioning the work of art as a cycle and a whole: it makes no difference whether paintings, photographs, installations, etc. are involved. These tendencies in Czech fine art are represented by such artists as J. Šerých, T. Vaňek, J. Nálevka, M. Pěchouček, E. Šimera, M. Škoda, J. Matějů, T. Hlavina, V. Krůček, I. Vosecký, and others.

The exhibition will also present a selection of artists whose medium is the photograph but whose work often rather fits the context of the above-mentioned artists than purely photographic exhibitions of traditional photography. The reason is that the already mentioned conceptual basis of their work is more important than the quality of the photograph as such. In addition, works by Jasanský and Polák, M. Othová, A. Kotzmanová, M. Kalhous, M. Preslová and J. Thýn will appear at the exhibition.

The exhibition will also present, as a host, the American conceptual artist, Morgan O’Hara, who deals with capturing the movement of human hands during various activities, especially those of musicians at concerts. The result of such capturing actually becomes a “portrait” of the captured person, who indirectly exposes themselves through the nature of their movements; if they are playing musicians they make the character of the piece of music and its author visible. Also exhibited will be a cycle of pictures which form only a minor part of O’Hara’s work, where the image captured in pencil is coloured in black to make the shape of a silhouette.

Considering the fact that our exhibition will coincide with an exhibition of works by the Hungarian artist, Dóra Maurer, who has been a pioneer of Hungarian conceptual and geometrical art since the 1970s, also displayed in the On the Bridge Gallery, it will assume another interesting dimension of relationship with similarly oriented foreign art.

Conceptual art is a trend that, in its consequences, has actually had its day. However, conceptual, in the sense of art conditioned by the concept in the broad sense of the word, is still present and still alive.