Panel Story
The winning project of 10th Scholarshop of Radislav Matuštík 2013 titled “Panel Story” focuses on the subject of mass housing development and the reflection of this phenomenon in contemporary visual art.In the 1970s and 1980s, the ideas of modernity in residential architecture were under the thumb of ideology and gradually turned into a monotonously repeated pattern. The rationalized building industry was controlled by political regime calculating with a human dimension under the constructive motto “architecture for all”. Of course, the division of the exhibition evokes the opposites such as external and internal, uniform and various, anonymous and personal, public and private, etc. Yet, if one wants to understand the issue of housing estates, one must consider the coexistence of these categories.
- The Radislav Matuščík´s scholarship is an educational program00:00:06.769
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- of the Bratislava City Gallery organized regularly since 2004.00:00:09.218
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- It is its 10th year.00:00:14.934
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- This project originated thanks to the initiation of Richard Gregor00:00:17.216
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- because we as students didn´t have any opportunity to practice our knowledge.00:00:21.607
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- We decided to let young curators to suggest the concept of this project.00:00:27.432
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- Each year a selected project is realized in the Bratislava City Gallery.00:00:32.868
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- This scholarship was originally named "Scholarship for young curators"00:00:39.701
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- and was focused sociologically when they deal with gallery as a institution,00:00:46.000
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- or with relation of gallery to viewers.00:00:52.358
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- They were projects of conceptual character.00:00:55.712
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- During last four years this project dynamized a bit, because00:00:59.160
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- we opened it also for artists and postgraduate students,00:01:03.304
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- it means for people who have some experience.00:01:08.442
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- Also we started to cooperate with the Czech republic, Brno.00:01:12.479
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- All that help to dynamize the project.00:01:15.581
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- This exhibition is called "Panelstory".00:01:22.791
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- It is the 10th exhibition.00:01:26.680
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- The title of the exhibition is inspired by the film title of00:01:30.170
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- a Czech film director, Věra Chytilová,00:01:33.423
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- "Panelstory or how a housing estate is being built" from 1979.00:01:35.667
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- As the title says, it is a search for visuality of a housing estate.00:01:39.672
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- When designing the exhibition we were inspired00:01:44.688
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- by the theory of a French essayist Olivier Mongin who speaks00:01:46.741
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- about two types of discourse able to perceive urban environment.00:01:50.611
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- The first one is the discourse of an engineer or urbanist00:01:54.540
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- who is objective and rational.00:01:59.451
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- The other one is a discourse of a poet, this one is more subjective.00:02:01.703
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- An artist perceives its surroundings through its aesthetic influence.00:02:06.334
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- This type of environment perception is very significant to us00:02:13.861
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- when designing the exhibition.00:02:16.314
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- The exhibition is divided into two parts.00:02:17.667
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- The criterion of this settlement is the perspective of a look.00:02:20.584
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- The first part of the exhibition focused on the exterior of a housing estate.00:02:26.339
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- In these works the panel architecture represents a specific sign figure.00:02:33.633
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- On one side as a symbol related to totality or to politics of former regime.00:02:38.082
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- It my be seen in the artworks by Martin Kochan, Jaroslav Varga or David Možný.00:02:42.057
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- Other manner of thinking focused primarily on formal and aesthetic qualities00:02:51.170
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- of a housing estate is present in the paintings.00:02:55.595
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- The authors deal with uniformity and anonymous poetics of this space.00:03:00.253
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- They work with a panel house as with an abstract lattice00:03:07.121
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- or a geometrical grid.00:03:11.893
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- This appears in the works by Juraj Toman, Lucia Tálová or Petr Cvik.00:03:13.440
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- As Lucia has already said, our view on a housing estate00:03:29.928
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- has ambiguous character.00:03:35.245
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- The present housing estates are places where most people live.00:03:39.157
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- In our case, the interest is focused on the connection to a human being.00:03:46.371
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- It is not just a theme limited by architecture, urbanism or building,00:03:52.815
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- but we are really focused on the connection to a man.00:03:58.986
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- That´s why in the second part we situate ourself into the opposite position.00:04:08.480
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- We change the perspective of view.00:04:10.431
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- We are directed at the interior.00:04:13.457
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- We search for a human factor in flat units.00:04:16.991
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- To be able to quote my favourite sentence from our press release,00:04:25.806
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- it´s about filling a certain kind of architecture by different kinds of human characters.00:04:29.361
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- It is possible to say that this second part creates an antithesis to the first one00:04:36.268
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- by a connector or platform where two exhibition units may encounter.00:04:42.131
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- It is in fact one of the basic thesis of human geography.00:04:52.466
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- Actually, it is an interaction between a man and a space.00:04:59.728
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- It is a constant dialogue between a human factor and architectonic.00:05:03.708
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- I was inspired by my experience.00:05:11.201
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- I moved from a block of flats to another flat that has a similar00:05:17.228
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- ground plan as my former flat.00:05:27.366
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- It made me think how space is able to form or deform its users.00:05:35.278
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- How I am influenced by the space.00:05:43.384
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- I would say that this is very typical of this generation from 1980´s.00:05:46.355
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- The people who were removed to the housing estates.00:05:57.479
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- I can´t exactly say which generation.00:06:00.909
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- I would rather say, it is a Slovak or eastern phenomena.00:06:05.917