Jan Zálešák
Jan Zálešák (*1979) vystudoval Pedagogickou fakultu Masarykovy univerzity v Brně, kde na Katedře výtvarné výchovy obhájil v roce 2007 dizertační práci na téma Rámce interpretace. Ve výzkumu mapoval současné metody interpretace obrazů a problematiku vztahoval k oblasti výtvarné výchovy. Od roku 2008 se pohybuje v akademickém prostředí, nejprve jako výzkumný odborník Vědecko-výzkumného pracoviště na AVU (2008), později začal přednášet na Masarykově univerzitě teorii a dějin umění. V roce 2011 nastoupil jako odborný asistent na Katedru teorie a dějin umění Fakulty výtvarných umění VUT v Brně.
V letech 2008-2010 působil jako kurátor brněnské Galerie mladých, ve které se nejčastěji věnoval výstavám individuálních umělců. Zálešák na výstavách spolupracoval také s Fait Gallery, brněnským Domem umění nebo s pražskou galerií FUTURA. Jako kurátor se prostřednictvím skupinových výstav zabývá aktuálními tendencemi v současném umění, těmi jsou například odkaz romantismu (Re-romantic, Galerie mladých, 2009/2010), návraty do minulosti (Vzpomínky na budoucnost II, Dům umění města Brna, 2013/2014) nebo reprezentace krize technokapitalistické společnosti (Apocalypse Me, Galerie Emila Filly, 2016). Kromě kurátorské práce se Zálešák věnuje také kritickému a teoretickému psaní, publikoval či publikuje v časopisech Ateliér, Flash Art CZ/SK, Art & Antiques a A2. V roce 2010 mu v Sešitě pro umění , teorii a příbuzné zóny vyšla studie zabývající se kritickým kurátorstvím a problematikou uměleckého výzkumu. Zásadní publikací, která mapuje českou uměleckou scénu od roku 1998 se zřetelem k participativnímu umění a k umělcům pracujícím ve dvojicích či skupinách, se stala kniha Umění spolupráce, kterou Zálešák vydal pod hlavičkou VVP AVU v roce 2011.
Anna Remešová
- I would first like to ask you how important is your work as a curator00:00:07.769
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- in comparison to other activities that you do.00:00:15.752
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- You teach, write texts, books... so are exhibitions a cherry on top of a cake00:00:17.950
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- or is it something all your other activities are aimed at,00:00:30.107
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- or are all the other activities on the same kind of level?00:00:36.146
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- Well, it changes in the course of time,00:00:46.303
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- should I say what it´s like at the moment, so I´d say this is what I´d like to do the most00:00:48.143
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- but unfortunately I haven´t got the time.00:00:54.256
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- And there is a logical chronological sequence,00:00:56.271
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- up to the year 2010, when I worked in the Gallery of Young Artists,00:00:59.599
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- so I devoted half of my time to the institution,00:01:02.802
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- and I also did postdoctoral research, but most of my time I devoted to the gallery.00:01:08.781
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- And now I devote most of my time to the school of course,00:01:16.277
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- so it´s the cherry on the top of the cake because I enjoy it the most,00:01:22.284
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- but I have little time, so I try to find rhythm and find out how much I can do within a year,00:01:27.336
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- so that the work doesn´t turn into a duty,00:01:37.083
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- and the enjoyment isn´t lost.00:01:40.372
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- I need to enjoy my work, that´s what I like about it.00:01:42.755
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- I can benefit from it but I must admit that not as much as I would like to00:01:48.276
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- in terms of my teaching activities.00:01:55.813
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- So all these things run next to each other,00:01:58.203
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- but the courses I teach here do not specialize in curatorship,00:02:02.878
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- except for one course we started this year with Zuzana Jakalová,00:02:10.953
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- and which works well so far.00:02:16.722
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- We´re looking for ways to show our experience, too.00:02:17.764
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- You keep saying how curatorship influences your teaching. Does this apply vice versa?00:02:21.841
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- For instance you curated the exhibition S-flux00:02:38.170
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- which was devoted to teaching of art,00:02:39.845
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- so is it possible to find a parallel in the opposite direction?00:02:44.756
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- This was a project which was a part of a larger whole.00:02:48.804
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- It was a one-year project under the auspices of the Faculty of Art and Design in Ústí nad Labem,00:02:53.970
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- and about four schools took part in it, including the Academy of Arts,00:03:00.290
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- Academy of Arts and Design in Prague, Faculty of Arts in Ostrava.00:03:05.360
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- Each of the schools was supposed to come up with their own exhibition concept,00:03:09.418
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- that was back in 2012, and most of them were more or less standard exhibitions,00:03:13.811
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- giving the students from different schools an opportunity to cooperate,00:03:21.143
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- which was a sort of subliminal task,00:03:25.471
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- and me and Šárka Svobodová decided to focus more on the school.00:03:27.109
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- This was connected with my reading some new interesting texts on education at that time00:03:33.078
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- and also with the fact that I started working at the school shortly before.00:03:41.519
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- So I enjoyed working with the school as a kind of space00:03:46.009
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- and focus on how each studio was different,00:03:51.738
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- it was my first, intensive experience,00:03:54.718
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- I can´t really compare it to other schools,00:03:56.576
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- but I think it is more intensive at FAVU than at other places00:04:02.084
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- due to a certain isolation of the studios,00:04:05.674
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- each of them is a strange kind of unit,00:04:07.987
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- working independently and following a specific direction.00:04:10.694
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- They also differ in their approach00:04:13.413
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- and I thought it would be interesting to show all this.00:04:18.038
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- So except for the concept, the work of the curator was sort of poor,00:04:21.647
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- it was more about management of the space.00:04:26.219
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- Making sure every morning that the people would take turns there,00:04:30.523
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- that something would be going on there,00:04:33.542
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- each studio had 24 hours,00:04:35.648
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- the picture was being composed and the topic I like was present there,00:04:38.193
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- although it´s difficult to work with such a theme long, because it´d become a cliché,00:04:46.386
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- and that´s the time aspect of the exhibition,00:04:49.801
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- where something changes in the course of time,00:04:51.727
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- and you don´t get the chance to see it as a whole,00:04:54.126
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- but you just walk into some kind of a process.00:04:57.475
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- That was another important aspect we wanted to focus on00:04:59.778
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- and offer it to someone who has the opportunity to see it five, six or eight times,00:05:04.278
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- and each time get a different picture of the exhibition.00:05:09.433
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- Can you see any process that you use and repeat when preparing exhibitions?00:05:11.943
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- What I mean is whether you usually first have a theme and then start looking for works of art,00:05:21.458
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- or the other way around. Or is there a method that you repeat?00:05:28.378
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- Well, I usually first see some works and realize I like them,00:05:33.391
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- and that I´d like to do something with them,00:05:46.658
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- and then it all works in a kind of weird circle.00:05:48.584
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- The theme usually comes after,00:05:53.083
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- and it defines the things again later on,00:05:57.246
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- so there is a kind of feedback process which continues until it stops.00:06:00.313
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- I don´t remember ever first thinking of a theme and then looking for suitable art works.00:06:09.465
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- At the beginning there´s always a strong impression, experience,00:06:17.976
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- or a need to deal with a certain type of artworks than a certain type of themes00:06:22.163
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- because the theme mostly comes along with the artworks.00:06:27.214
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- As regards repetition in my approach or whether I like doing something again and again00:06:29.987
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- so I think there is one thing that I more or less unintentionally used in more exhibitions,00:06:40.258
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- and that is the fact that I like displaying artworks I had seen in new ways,00:06:48.306
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- set them in new contexts, offer a new space, a new kind of installation.00:07:00.210
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- I don´t know why but I feel it´s a space where I can talk to the artists and feel that I´m an artist too.00:07:07.286
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- We can then speak about how the artwork will be displayed and what it will look like,00:07:17.024
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- this is the process that I´m personally interested in,00:07:26.066
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- I can get involved in things that are related to exhibition design or architecture,00:07:31.200
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- or decisions which are more formal.00:07:37.423
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- This is connected with the fact that I like "the hands-on approach".00:07:40.452
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- I don´t simply get an idea, make a sketch and then go and see how the exhibition is installed00:07:45.871
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- and give an opening speech.00:07:50.655
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- Opening speeches - that´s exactly what I don´t like.00:07:52.043
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- What I really like is the week of installation.00:07:56.650
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- You spoke mainly about the formal aspects of staging artwork, what about the content?00:08:01.826
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- Do you have a characteristic approach?00:08:11.006
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- I´d say I don´t.00:08:17.390
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- There is no leitmotif, no recurring theme.00:08:20.445
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- To a certain degree this is also because I don´t sit an institution as a curator,00:08:26.052
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- and it´s not my job description.00:08:40.027
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- I usually respond to a specific thing.00:08:42.425
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- For example there´s a project or a grant with a general theme which I can take part in.00:08:45.699
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- So I say OK, I can prepare an exhibition. But the theme is already given in advance.00:08:54.814
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- I said that in the beginning I usually start with the artworks, so in case of the exhibition Memories of the Future II00:09:02.772
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- there was a general motif given by a grant,00:09:12.323
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- but what played a key role for me was meeting Agnieszka Polska00:09:16.151
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- and seeing her work during a school trip.00:09:22.456
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- I do exhibitions with a theme perhaps once every two years.00:09:26.319
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- So in the last six years I did three.00:09:36.478
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- They are mostly connected a bit to what is going on in contemporary art,00:09:43.162
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- but I don´t come up with my own themes or set some kind of a trend,00:09:52.063
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- It would be nice if I did, but I haven´t got that far yet.00:09:59.432
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- And another important thing, which I tried to explain during .00:10:03.562
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- the commented tour of the exhibition Apocalypse Me in Ústí nad Labem,00:10:10.767
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- is that during the exhibition I try to stay in a kind of state of ignorance.00:10:14.903
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- I myself don´t fully understand the art, sometimes it´s perhaps a bit too much,00:10:20.205
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- but for me an exhibition is not a means to give a definite answer to something,00:10:25.012
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- I enjoy the process of openness,00:10:32.118
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- and when I communicate with the artists00:10:35.776
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- I often half-intentionally don´t want them to explain everything,00:10:39.019
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- I don´t want them to give a perfect interpretation.00:10:45.115
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- I like to keep a certain distance,00:10:48.646
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- a certain amount of unawareness.00:10:51.623
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- I don´t know what the reason is exactly,00:10:54.034
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- but it´s perhaps because I used to write about exhibitions before,00:10:55.993
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- so I was on the other side as a critic or interpreter,00:11:01.762
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- and I still like looking at exhibitions with a little distance.00:11:06.943
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- The reason why I asked is that the themes of exhibitions are often related to your texts00:11:13.194
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- so how do they communicate with each other, how do they complement each other?00:11:23.474
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- Does an exhibition react to a text or vice versa?00:11:29.726
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- Well, this is a model which has been created only recently and is connected with to my work at the school.00:11:33.272
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- So in the background there is an institution,00:11:37.858
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- in the past three years we repeatedly managed to receive a relatively large grant00:11:42.795
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- for specific research, entailing the publication of a book or texts.00:11:52.596
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- However, we always found a way how to stage an exhibition within the framework of the grant,00:12:00.184
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- including a text of course.00:12:04.733
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- I tried out this model with the exhibition Memories of the Future II,00:12:06.413
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- where the exhibition and text originated simultaneously.00:12:15.085
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- The book isn´t written as a catalog of the exhibition but rather as an essay,00:12:19.542
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- or a study, which is parallel to the exhibition.00:12:25.252
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- It may not be a right comparison...I read an interview with Nicolas Bourriaud,00:12:29.098
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- in which he defined the Alter modern, and after curating the Tate Triennial exhibition00:12:37.915
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- he wrote a book The Radicant, which stemmed from the exhibition.00:12:46.128
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- So this principle, you cannot say everything through an exhibition,00:12:52.293
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- some things can be expressed really strongly, others not,00:12:55.860
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- but then they can be expressed in the text,00:12:59.514
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- so this is what I´m interested in now, what I´m trying to further develop,00:13:01.532
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- but it´s a slow process.00:13:06.305
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- I know that if I do it this way this year I´ll need a rest next year.00:13:09.345
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- You spoke about the connections between an exhibition and a book or a long essay.00:13:15.704
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- But what does the actual text accompanying an exhibition mean for you?00:13:21.546
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- Because I came across criticism concerning the exhibition Apocalypse Me00:13:26.725
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- saying that the text perhaps tells us too much about the exhibition.00:13:34.224
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- So tell us what role does the accompanying text play.00:13:40.879
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- Perhaps it is linked with the expectations what an exhibition is supposed to "do" with the visitor.00:13:48.222
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- I heard two completely different opinions.00:13:58.336
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- One claimed there was too much in the text and the other that a lot of things were missing.00:14:03.793
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- I must admit that I do tend to spoon-feed a bit sometimes in my texts,00:14:09.668
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- and it´s more intensive with solo exhibitions,00:14:21.402
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- when I try to work with one artist intensively00:14:25.932
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- in order to offer the artist and consequently the viewer an interpretation they may find interesting.00:14:34.711
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- Perhaps I´m a bit autistic in this respect00:14:47.435
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- or I don´t expect any feedback,00:14:50.660
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- and there´s one thing I never do -00:14:53.802
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- I don´t write press handouts with elementary information,00:14:59.098
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- and do what you like with it.00:15:04.875
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- From the year 2008 in the Gallery of Young Artists00:15:06.389
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- I began to write texts which are a kind of narration,00:15:10.061
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- which are parallel to the exhibitions and are more and more verbose,00:15:14.739
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- but this is what I´m interested in,00:15:17.177
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- sometimes it goes to "the extreme".00:15:20.310
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- I did an exhibition with Dan Vlček in the gallery Kabinet T in Zlín,00:15:28.223
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- for which I wrote a really long text00:15:33.883
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- and I wrote about different things which weren´t even displayed at the exhibition,00:15:38.929
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- it describes a sort of background of the exhibition.00:15:45.808
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- I asked about your texts also in connection with the viewer,00:15:48.026
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- to what extent do you think of the viewer in advance,00:15:51.627
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- what kind of a role does the text play00:15:56.188
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- and how does it help the visitor to understand the exhibition.00:15:58.289
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- I think it plays a big role, but I must admit00:16:05.175
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- that I´m less and less able to put myself in the position of a model viewer,00:16:08.654
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- perhaps it´s the consequence of what I studied,00:16:17.442
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- I studied at the Faculty of Pedagogy,00:16:20.441
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- and I entered the world of art from the outside,00:16:24.477
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- I have the experience of the unknowledgeable viewer,00:16:27.274
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- who gradually discovers things for himself,00:16:31.087
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- and is grateful if somebody gives him a few hints and so on.00:16:34.803
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- So, I feel that I know what the necessary dosage of information is00:16:39.085
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- for it to work well.00:16:51.195
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- I think this sense was stronger when I was writing art reviews,00:16:52.133
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- as a curator I feel I get so deeply involved in the process00:16:56.931
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- that I tend to lose this sense a bit.00:17:02.650
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- You mostly spoke about the text in connection with an ideal viewer,00:17:05.957
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- or about communication with the viewer through the text,00:17:11.247
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- but do you think there is a difference in how knowledgeable viewers are00:17:15.745
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- in different regions, for instance in Prague and smaller towns.00:17:22.672
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- Are you aware of this when writing? Do you take it into account?00:17:28.131
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- Well, I think I don´t take into account the place as such,00:17:34.586
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- but I rather try to imagine what kind of visitors go to the actual gallery.00:17:40.015
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- I can use as an example the gallery in Zlín00:17:44.035
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- where I have been many times before,00:17:45.686
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- and we did a couple of exhibitions there,00:17:52.695
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- so I guess I know what kind of people go there00:17:55.553
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- and that most of them are acquainted with contemporary art.00:17:58.639
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- I don´t want to sound mean, but they aren´t the kind of people00:18:03.971
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- who go to look at pretty pictures on a Saturday afternoon because that´s what people should do.00:18:10.116
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- In this case I tried to write a lighter type of text,00:18:20.025
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- although I must admit it also dealt a bit with postfordism00:18:26.762
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- which isn´t for everyone.00:18:30.695
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- Otherwise I think I´m a bit deformed00:18:33.977
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- because most of the galleries I work for00:18:36.647
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- have a quite well-established vistitorship00:18:39.911
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- and I may speak without thinking whether I´m not talking in a too complicated way.00:18:45.945
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- And I know there should be some functional literacy,00:18:57.076
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- or some functional work with language,00:19:02.465
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- if I knew I was going to the gallery in Veselí in Moravia where I come from,00:19:04.770
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- so I would have to look for different vocabulary, use less specific terms00:19:11.547
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- and use more general language.00:19:21.877
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- I´m naturally aware of this, but when I look back,00:19:29.563
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- I realize I didn´t have to deal with this in the past few years00:19:37.765
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- or I just tell myself "So what?"00:19:42.441
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- Even in the Gallery of Young Artists we were always looking forward to visitors00:19:47.297
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- who weren´t pre-educated viewers of modern art,00:19:53.674
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- and in the end the majority is the general public,00:19:59.045
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- and so you primarily think of the people you meet in the gallery most often.00:20:03.353
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- which is natural.00:20:08.269
- 00:20:08.269
- What are the important tools when learning to be a curator?00:20:09.577
- 00:20:09.577
- What did you personally find useful?00:20:18.937
- 00:20:18.937
- And what do you think is useful or important in general when learning to become a curator?00:20:21.552
- 00:20:21.552
- The truth is that here specifically it is a bit like virtual reality00:20:33.727
- 00:20:33.727
- because it´s a course about curatorship for artists,00:20:42.688
- 00:20:42.688
- so we don´t expect the course to enlighten anyone00:20:45.841
- 00:20:45.841
- and want to be a curator immediately,00:20:50.524
- 00:20:50.524
- but we know that many people sometimes try to do exhibitions00:20:51.992
- 00:20:51.992
- and so we offer them thoughts and views from the other side.00:20:57.017
- 00:20:57.017
- I haven´t got much experience with specific curators´studies in the Czech Republic,00:21:03.636
- 00:21:03.636
- unfortunately I didn´t find the time to study them in detail,00:21:09.071
- 00:21:09.071
- but I formed my own opinion, in quite a radical way, in 2010 or 2011,00:21:13.681
- 00:21:13.681
- I´m not sure exactly,00:21:25.638
- 00:21:25.638
- but I attended with Jesper Alvaer and Isabela Grosse a conference in Kassel,00:21:26.649
- 00:21:26.649
- I can´t remember the exact name,00:21:32.321
- 00:21:32.321
- and it dealt with curatorship as a form of institutional criticism.00:21:36.740
- 00:21:36.740
- That was the first time I met all those well-established foreign curators,00:21:41.713
- 00:21:41.713
- such as Maria Lind and others,00:21:48.484
- 00:21:48.484
- and people who taught curators´studies at Bard College and so on,00:21:49.838
- 00:21:49.838
- and then there were the students who studied curatorship -00:21:55.614
- 00:21:55.614
- ambitious guys in their mid- and late-twenties,00:21:58.953
- 00:21:58.953
- who studied in Zurich, Stockholm or at the Royal College of Art in London,00:22:05.172
- 00:22:05.172
- and in those days it was strange for me to realize00:22:10.903
- 00:22:10.903
- that they speak the same language, they had learnt something at school,00:22:15.717
- 00:22:15.717
- and they all leave their schools with a certificate and very similar experience.00:22:19.837
- 00:22:19.837
- When I came back from the conference I was a bit disillusioned.00:22:26.729
- 00:22:26.729
- I thought it was more interesting and makes more sense to learn from the bottom, without a school,00:22:29.933
- 00:22:29.933
- it´s not necessary and so on.00:22:38.042
- 00:22:38.042
- In fact I still think it´s true.00:22:40.057
- 00:22:40.057
- I think that studying curator´s work, in order to learn the job,00:22:42.137
- 00:22:42.137
- is as interesting or as important at studying art.00:22:49.190
- 00:22:49.190
- You can gain something but it doesn´t solve much in itself.00:22:53.672
- 00:22:53.672
- What I find of crucial importance, and what most of us lack,00:22:58.706
- 00:22:58.706
- so the work of curators has different levels,00:23:08.411
- 00:23:08.411
- or some operational systems,00:23:11.229
- 00:23:11.229
- and we are all able to learn how to curate in punk or DIY galleries,00:23:13.114
- 00:23:13.114
- off spaces, we´re able to do an exhibition with a 500-crown budget,00:23:21.200
- 00:23:21.200
- we can all learn that,00:23:24.859
- 00:23:24.859
- but none of us is able to learn to organize an exhibition in a large institution with a budget of half a million.00:23:26.976
- 00:23:26.976
- It´s a type of competence which I don´t have a chance to learn here.00:23:33.955
- 00:23:33.955
- And this is what I find very interesting.00:23:38.723
- 00:23:38.723
- Is this also something one can learn?00:23:41.558
- 00:23:41.558
- Perhaps this is one of the reasons why so few curators win recognition abroad.00:23:46.287
- 00:23:46.287
- Is it also because there is a lack of professional experience?00:23:56.336
- 00:23:56.336
- On one hand it´s amazing we can all do things with minimum means,00:24:00.444
- 00:24:00.444
- but on the other hand it sets limits to our ambitions, imagination,00:24:06.599
- 00:24:06.599
- in our ability to use some installation techniques,00:24:11.729
- 00:24:11.729
- because we know we can´t afford them,00:24:14.255
- 00:24:14.255
- so we don´t even think of them.00:24:15.712
- 00:24:15.712
- This is an important topic which should be also dealt with at school,00:24:18.730
- 00:24:18.730
- and I can imagine it would be interesting for students of the curator´s studies.00:24:25.427
- 00:24:25.427
- I hope it´s being discussed.00:24:30.780
- 00:24:30.780
- We don´t solve it here now because perhaps it´s too far, an inside problem of curatorship.00:24:31.803
- 00:24:31.803
- We try to show the difference between curator´s work in an institution with art collections00:24:39.646
- 00:24:39.646
- and the work of a free-lance curator,00:24:49.001
- 00:24:49.001
- between specific types of exhibitions, for example focused on public art,00:24:53.749
- 00:24:53.749
- or an exhibition focused on something else.00:24:58.904
- 00:24:58.904
- We want to show that behind every area different decisions must be made,00:25:01.612
- 00:25:01.612
- a different strategy of different type of competence.00:25:07.480
- 00:25:07.480
- For example, somebody must deal with authorities,00:25:09.657
- 00:25:09.657
- it´s different to deal with someone who is in charge of a collection or an archive,00:25:11.586
- 00:25:11.586
- so we solve more general problems.00:25:16.163
- 00:25:16.163
- Professionalization is one aspect which will always be linked with the environment,00:25:21.129
- 00:25:21.129
- until most of our institutions remain contributory organizations,00:25:30.494
- 00:25:30.494
- where employees have open-ended contracts,00:25:38.188
- 00:25:38.188
- and just wait until they can retire,00:25:40.847
- 00:25:40.847
- we all know what it is like,00:25:42.993
- 00:25:42.993
- in the course of the last five years I can´t remember an open call for the post of a curator,00:25:47.513
- 00:25:47.513
- so these are visible limits of professionalization in the field of modern art curatorship.00:25:54.012
- 00:25:54.012
- But at the same time we have the opportunity to learn.00:26:00.875
- 00:26:00.875
- There are more and more opportunities to go abroad, apply for residence stays,00:26:05.059
- 00:26:05.059
- to meet people.00:26:10.742
- 00:26:10.742
- I often speak to Zuzana Jakalová and we´ve both noticed00:26:11.648
- 00:26:11.648
- a certain retardation of institutional work,00:26:17.787
- 00:26:17.787
- of curatorship and art,00:26:21.591
- 00:26:21.591
- many things which were successfully established for artists,00:26:23.768
- 00:26:23.768
- so only now similar things are going to happen also for curators,00:26:28.266
- 00:26:28.266
- since they have similar needs,00:26:35.020
- 00:26:35.020
- and without a broad outlook and understanding how things work elsewhere,00:26:38.811
- 00:26:38.811
- nobody can move ahead.00:26:45.494
- 00:26:45.494
- You can of course continue doing your job well...00:26:46.298
- 00:26:46.298
- I personally have been thinking for a long time00:26:49.586
- 00:26:49.586
- whether I can move ahead if I stay sitting on my chair in Brno,00:26:54.266
- 00:26:54.266
- but that´s another question...00:26:59.325
- 00:26:59.325
- I think that if you have the ambition, you want more people to know you00:27:06.780
- 00:27:06.780
- than just a few people here,00:27:14.754
- 00:27:14.754
- so sooner or later you have to simply go abroad.00:27:17.715