Petr Dub

• Most of the material I work with is rubbish in fact.00:00:09.849
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• I take it as a provocation, because when I studied00:00:16.460
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• the 5th and 6th year at the Academy, I didn't have much money and00:00:20.661
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• I also realized that making art means cumulating new00:00:24.362
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• objects and burdening the world with another waste.00:00:29.861
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• So I wanted to change it and all these laths and00:00:34.822
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• everything you see here is a waste I gathered at joiner's workshops.00:00:38.704
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• I like working with ready mades and pre-set formats.00:00:48.516
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• The same goes for these industrial paints I use.00:00:55.271
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• Today I just can't imagine using a set of perfect acrylic paints00:01:02.048
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• without combining them with the industrial ones,00:01:10.174
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• there I have a roof paint Aluna which is my trade secret.00:01:16.532
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• I combine it with oil paints, it's kind of an interstage between00:01:25.889
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• the industrial commercial operation and paints00:01:36.859
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• which are made solely for the art industry.00:01:41.938
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• I find the fact we have our special paints made,00:01:49.242
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• the proper paints for artists really ridiculous.00:01:54.515
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• So I realized this didn't go for me.00:02:00.211
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• Who do you think from the people buried here shifted00:02:06.947
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• most the boarders of the global back then?00:02:12.241
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• I don't have in mind the today's interpretations,00:02:21.467
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• but back then,00:02:28.303
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• who realized there was something else besides the local production?00:02:30.064
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• Well, at least two of them.00:02:37.658
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• And they were both reproached for that.00:02:43.028
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• Because everything global or foreign was in the 19th century00:02:45.492
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• considered an assault on the Czech nationality.00:02:50.905
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• For example Smetana was reproached for being influenced by Wagner,00:02:55.291
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• they said it wasn't proper Czech music,00:02:58.188
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• but an awful German music.00:03:00.061
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• Then Karel Purkyně who would go to study in Munich and Paris...00:03:03.200
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• this is local I guess...00:03:09.657
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• and he wanted to import the critical discourse of00:03:12.263
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• the then main art centers such as Paris and Munich to our country.00:03:21.689
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• But it was so grossly refused here, that he became a heavy alcoholic00:03:29.244
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• and died relatively soon in connection with his unsuccessful attempt to globalize it here.00:03:35.405
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• Smetana got used to the Czech milieu in the end00:03:43.888
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• and composed My Country through which he justified of the Wagner influence00:03:47.988
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• and they accepted him.00:03:56.263
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• So he didn't have to drink himself to death00:03:57.840
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• and he could wait for the syphilis to strike him down.00:03:59.969
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• Everything you see here is logically connected for me00:04:03.795
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• and the cycles don't differ a lot as they all deal with the same issue.00:04:11.227
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• I don't prefer any of them and consider them neither crucial nor determining,00:04:16.524
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• but I regard them rather as segments of my thinking about00:04:20.462
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• what a painting can signify today and how00:04:25.107
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• we can view a painting as an art medium from a single radical position.00:04:29.735
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• We started to use the term of an expanded painting00:04:39.782
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• quite late in the local context at the turn of the century.00:04:44.724
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• On the basis of what I had seen abroad00:04:53.351
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• I felt the local interpretation of what is an expanded painting00:04:56.081
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• is not well named, let alone advanced00:05:00.945
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• and there are not many artists dealing with it.00:05:06.292
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• We may apprehend the term not only with respect to the 3D painting00:05:09.025
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• but also in the relation to an installation and00:05:16.662
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• the way the painting is approached during the installation.00:05:23.434
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• Every architecture and gallery, from the cheapest off-spaces to the most luxury galleries,00:05:26.159
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• always create a certain frame of the painting00:05:34.505
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• and it is necessary to handle the situation according to it.00:05:38.849
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• I like the most these semi-finished objects of the studio work,00:05:52.547
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• when something is created and you can hang it on the wall to take a look at it00:05:59.608
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• and I feel it's the most genuine symbiont.00:06:08.135
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• Once you take it somewhere else,00:06:12.376
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• you pretend or play in the gallery another situation00:06:14.917
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• different from the one which was going on00:06:19.078
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• when the thing was being created at the studio.00:06:22.883
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• The work is authentic only in the artist's studio,00:06:29.187
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• when it gets to a gallery, it becomes a different painting00:06:36.663
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• and when you take the third step and the work gets to an ordinary and informal space,00:06:41.328
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• a completely different interpretation of the artwork is going on I guess.00:06:49.205
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• For curators and theorists the work itself is going on only00:06:54.234
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• at the moment of the gallery installation and during the exhibition.00:06:59.591
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• Which means that everything before and after should be eliminated from the discourse00:07:05.456
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• because it isn't the authorized agreement of all the partakers.00:07:11.431
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• I really appreciate that I went through many studios during my studies and00:07:35.888
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• most of the studio heads from Jirka David to Petr Kvíčala00:07:42.790
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• hold a very distinctive opinion of what is an art.00:07:50.667
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• Of course they are willing or ready to have a relatively general discussion,00:07:55.836
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• but when the door is closed,00:08:01.322
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• they adhere to just one black and white truth.00:08:03.123
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• I think this problem also reflects the way the art is interpreted00:08:08.469
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• within a professional discourse which,00:08:16.158
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• due to this contradiction,00:08:18.680
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• doesn't get to the lay public.00:08:21.147
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• As for the relation between sport and art,00:08:47.499
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• I am interested in the agreed game stature.00:08:53.098
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• Because all sport disciplines have a clearly defined field,00:08:57.918
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• rules predetermining the number of players,00:09:03.404
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• the way of scoring or winning within the match00:09:08.403
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• and at the same time, regardless the match result,00:09:15.230
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• they present a certain type of a spectacular event.00:09:19.657
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• Breaking the game rules, breaking the stereotypes and traditions,00:09:42.949
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• but in principle it all happens in such a conventional way,00:09:46.388
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• that it creates another dialect and another way of a conventional thinking.00:09:52.212
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• I guess it isn't possible to contradict the statement00:09:59.674
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• saying the art exists only when the experted public agrees on it.00:10:04.735
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• And that's exactly what I am interested in.00:10:13.468
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• In order that football works both for players and spectators,00:10:15.884
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• as in any other game, it has to go on within certain conventions and agreed rules.00:10:19.727
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• I am fully aware that accepting the fact art is a commodity is problematic00:10:45.286
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• especially because of its ability to develop,00:10:52.833
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• so that it doesn't stagnate on the commodity level of distinguishing what is saleable,00:10:57.395
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• what's your brand and what is appropriate to pass on your clients or viewers.00:11:04.057
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• It is of course very important to know how to make living and how to function as an artist,00:11:11.301
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• in case you haven't decided the art trade is out of question for you.00:11:18.211
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• However I consider this moment also problematic because00:11:24.103
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• on the other hand working on the basis of the grant policy expects it's not money00:11:27.462
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• but in fact it is money of taxpayers and private foundations,00:11:36.203
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• so there is always someone who has to pay for the art in the end.00:11:42.274
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• Even if it was your individual decision to pay it from your own money and00:11:45.958
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• to work at a cash desk in Ikea or in a warehouse.00:11:50.132
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• That's one level.00:11:56.035
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• Another, the commodity one is in my opinion much more interesting in the art process,00:11:57.098
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• a kind of material transformation, the wood, canvas, colours you handle00:12:03.314
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• it can be anything, any medium or any format00:12:09.663
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• is a material commodity in a way which is being transformed by another activity.00:12:13.696
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• Money is a social fragment which allows exchanging these values.00:12:19.779
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• You can't get away from it00:12:26.518
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• and our local art market is a bit deformed because the society is still looking for the right values00:12:30.637
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• and the only thing the market reflects is the crisis of the common agreement.00:12:42.629
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• To claim something is a commodity or a product,00:12:50.915
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• just because it has got a character of something from the material, sensual or physical world,00:12:57.311
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• that's not a definition of a commodity.00:13:07.617
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• Commodity is something we trade with,00:13:09.645
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• but a thing and a commodity are two different things.00:13:12.551
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• A painting has primarily got a character of a thing,00:13:16.318
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• but it doesn't mean it is a commodity.00:13:19.416
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• You can well trade with ideas, ideologies are great to trade with.00:13:23.408
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• This painting is called Sasha Grey and it is named after an actress,00:13:40.250
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• because her name includes the grey.00:13:46.040
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• The whole cycle deals with porn actresses00:13:49.977
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• whose pseudonym contains a colour.00:13:52.498
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• The paintings' sound features call up dark, black, light or blue and00:13:55.565
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• I tried to transfer it into my thinking about the painting's surface,00:14:02.374
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• which wasn't created using conventional techniques,00:14:06.891
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• although I used common materials.00:14:12.095
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• Inside there isn't a blind frame but wood,00:14:19.431
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• it is constructed so that it protrudes from the frame00:14:23.383
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• and it is covered with common painting canvas.00:14:27.447
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• Keeping to the original matter is very important to me.00:14:30.014
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• Social mingles today very closely with the professional,00:14:49.485
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• overlapping to wider society where more people are willing to accept00:14:53.110
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• the art product and not just the professional community.00:14:57.836
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• Nobody notices a presentation on the Internet however amazing it is,00:15:04.701
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• everybody takes it like photos from a trip to a castle for example,00:15:10.697
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• it doesn't make any difference if you painted something or went on a trip and took photos.00:15:14.621
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• So you need to get into the right centre, but what is the centre...00:15:22.527
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• You need to get there physically...00:15:40.850
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• Ideally you personally rather than the artwork.00:15:44.404
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• You have to be at the exhibition opening,00:15:51.680
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• there must be something going on around you,00:15:54.006
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• you need to be the mascot at certain events.00:15:57.670
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• Do you think this is a phenomenon brought about by the era of social media00:16:01.664
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• or is it something we can notice periodically in the history of art?00:16:07.540
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• The author's presence, the physical esprit...00:16:14.261
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• This hunger for body, physical presence or reality,00:16:19.422
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• when we can touch someone has never been as intensive as today.00:16:28.524
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• In past we could communicate only with the help of physical tools and00:16:32.982
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• the hunger for a physical presence is certainly bigger owing to the virtualization.00:16:40.664
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• We decided the painting has to hang on the wall ignoring the laws of gravity,00:17:01.361
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• we found nails, eyelets, holes and a frame to hang the painting and00:17:12.257
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• it is so obscure that it has almost nothing to do with art.00:17:18.244
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• In my opinion it comes out from the idea that00:17:23.403
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• there must be always something in the viewer's visual field to look at.00:17:26.609
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• I find this moment really fascinating and I consider it kind of a challenge00:17:32.526
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• to break this field and say what we see peripherally00:17:38.218
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• left and right has the same significant meaning,00:17:42.262
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• there is not an ideal perspective and all these fragments are just a part00:17:46.934
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• of much bigger complex which is in fact impossible to stop.00:17:53.294

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