Petr Dub
Painting. Picture. Object. Relief. Installation. Material. Space. Relations. Shape. Non/ boarders. Solid or soft. Vertical, horizontal, centricity. Colour, non-colour. Shadow. Stroke but not a gesture? Shades. Shiver? Segmenting. Surface, depth. Island. Shine as a surface? Drawing, dragging. As if something was about to follow, to ascend a prepared pedestal. Weight. Variants. Rarity. Nascence. A pregnant picture. Alien. Tumors. There isn’t a proper point of view, more possibilities. Front and underside. Attraction. Stain. Light. Hand tremble. Folding, geology, but. Circle. Place. Swing. Bones. Thinning and growing. Delight.
Two paintings by Petr Dub I want to mention are both blue. In my opinion, one of them represents an island or a place – something like a privileged space in which a subject and a body live. The second one consists of two parts: a stroke, a way, movement and its frame which differs from the way due to its material character. The material lies there whereas the way just moves like a vector which can be only filled up by a specific body. To the contrary, the island has its own geology and geography, even its hidden and reverse places, back sides and folds. These two painting principles differ radically, they both examine possibilities. Painting as an island providing a place of repose for the viewers, supporting them by its embossed and physical stages. Painting as a way exceeds its limits, it calls to remoteness. In the words of Alois Riegel it would represent an antonym of a haptic and optical principle in the history of painting. However antonym is a traditional ontological construct of the west. A linguistic construct. But this is not about the language. It is about the painting. A painting is not created with help of differences (which does not make the contrasts insignificant), but with help of plasticization and penetration. A traditional principle of drawing (academic) does not represent the principle of painting at all. The painting does not set the limits but the ground and movement. It can’t be abstract in the philosophic meaning. It is something more: a mistress (with all her vagaries, temptation and rejections)
Václav Hájek
- 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