Pomoderna a sedm monochromů
Přesto, že se dnes pohybujeme v digitální všudypřítomnosti, je tiskařský lis stále převratným vynálezem v oblasti šíření vizuální informace. Průmyslová výroba obrazů postupně změnila naše vnímání natolik, že jsme téměř ztratili přímou zkušenost s neopakovatelností původních předloh. Přepisování historie získalo s nástupem mechanické reprodukce nové možnosti a paměť se stala do jisté míry rukojmím polygrafického průmyslu. Digitalizace, možná zdánlivě, naší paměť z tohoto zajetí vysvobodila, ovšem na úkor uchopitelnosti. Fotografie opustila svůj materiální základ a v podobě nikdy nekončícího proudu dat, splynula s okolní realitou.
Čtení původních obrazů často provází nedorozumění a pochybnosti. Stará gramatika se pomalu vytrácí a nová se zatím neuzákonila. Tiskové reprodukce z minulého století se stávají podobně vzácnými, jako jejich původní předobrazy. Stopy jedné mizející technologie. Prchavost a opakovatelnost je u Svätopluka Mikyty záměrně vystupňována až na samotnou hranici viditelnosti. Nezřetelné otisky knižních ilustrací, vyzařují kdysi dávno ztracenou auru jedinečnosti. Do rozštěpených obrazů jsou vsazeny barevné plochy, které zcela překrývají spodní vrstvu s konkrétním motivem. Některá místa však zůstávají stále prázdná, chybějící reprodukce nejsou ničím nahrazeny. V nepřehledné záplavě technických obrazů s vysokým rozlišením, může být nezřetelnost svébytnou odpovědí na tyranii ostrosti.
Pokud se v minulosti Mikytova práce vztahovala především k ikonografii spojované s dobovou propagandou, pak v současnosti můžeme pozorovat určitý obrat k estetice užitého umění. Jednobarevné podklady plakátů a části interiérového designu, vytvářejí nejisté prostředí. To, co zůstává, je hra s odkazem polygrafického průmyslu a nespolehlivostí naší paměti.
Jiří Havlíček
- I am not sure the mic will work if I put it here...00:00:05.166
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- I could pin it to my beard.00:00:09.349
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- The show is entitled 'Pomoderna and Seven Monochromes'.00:00:21.088
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- It can be taken seriously, but also ironically, of course.00:00:25.184
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- In a certain way it refers to the artworks shown here.00:00:32.318
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- The word 'pomoderna' doesn't exist, of course.00:00:38.183
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- Though it's a non-word, it refers to modernity and modernism,00:00:42.376
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- and to the things that are visually represented here,00:00:46.565
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- things that I work with. They refer to past,00:00:50.832
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- which I have been working with continually for some time now.00:00:55.109
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- And in this show I would like to take this continuity up again,00:00:59.310
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- but more importantly I am also trying to develop it and go beyond00:01:03.577
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- in comparison to the previous shows and created artworks.00:01:07.633
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- All the things that are shown here were made for this exhibition.00:01:11.782
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- It doesn't mean I have made them only recently;00:01:16.041
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- they have been part of my collection for some time now.00:01:20.232
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- But only now they have started, in a way, to 'fit in', to this show.00:01:24.439
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- I tried to created a certain unifying pattern that would operate here00:01:28.803
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- and hint at some new direction00:01:32.942
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- and some new thinking00:01:37.234
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- but within the same kind of material I have been working with in past.00:01:41.520
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- It might be worthwhile to mention00:01:48.880
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- that objects Pomoderna I and Pomoderna II00:01:52.984
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- - two showcases that are quite stepping out in space.00:01:57.447
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- The boxes come originally from Hotel Kyjev00:02:03.709
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- and they are filled in a collage-like or bulletin-board-like manner00:02:07.777
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- with my redrawing that are already quite renown.00:02:11.881
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- But this places them as if on a whole new level,00:02:16.045
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- where I, myself, have tried to disrupt00:02:20.167
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- the principle of their original referentiality,00:02:24.481
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- their seriousness.00:02:28.618
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- Because it seems to be striking a serious pose,00:02:32.334
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- but when you gaze it, you start to notice there are disproportional interventions,00:02:36.481
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- like, for example, expressive, weird hats00:02:40.496
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- placed on heads of some figures of authority, power or culture, etc.00:02:44.653
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- But I am talking about this artwork,00:02:51.390
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- because it's an elaboration of my previous work and thinking,00:02:55.526
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- and since this is my first, and this big, solo show in Prague,00:02:59.781
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- I wanted to show this00:03:04.301
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- and express the continuity,00:03:08.530
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- or, say, the origins of the later works.00:03:12.953
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- I was talking about inconspicuous ties a minute ago,00:03:18.499
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- whereby we are getting to the monochromes00:03:22.959
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- - it's a very clean matter - serigraphy on paper00:03:28.470
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- - that fits into contemporary visuality,00:03:35.495
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- referentiality and reappropriation00:03:39.682
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- of modernity.00:03:44.389
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- They look also very clean, as if newly made,00:03:48.665
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- but the truth is they are appropriated prints, found objects -00:03:52.800
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- they are under prints of socialist posters from Cvernovka.00:03:57.098
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- And that's quite an important moment of the artwork00:04:01.172
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- that can't be seen immediately, but it refers, of course, to my work00:04:05.509
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- with ideas of totalitarian regimes,00:04:09.839
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- past and power structures that used to operate here.00:04:14.120
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- Therefore in the beauty of the monochrome, of the pristine color field,00:04:18.458
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- there hides the reason they were printed for -00:04:22.695
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- that they are actually just the under prints00:04:27.030
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- used for the production00:04:31.361
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- of messages loaded with propaganda.00:04:35.874
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- This is one of the newest things00:04:49.203
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- that was created by the very end of the creating of the exhibition concept00:04:53.504
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- and it wouldn't be created weren't the show curated by Jirka Havlíček,00:04:57.864
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- because when meeting in order to work out the conception of show00:05:02.087
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- he planted an idea into my head00:05:06.455
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- - an idea of 'polygraphic industry' was mentioned,00:05:10.678
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- because I collect books and work with original materials.00:05:14.952
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- A collection of notebooks from 1930s or 1940s00:05:25.689
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- I had bought long time ago in Prague, when I had lived here,00:05:30.106
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- and now they are back.00:05:34.416
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- They were put aside; forgotten even;00:05:38.366
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- I couldn't fit them into the context00:05:42.678
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- of the things I was doing back then. They wouldn't hold together.00:05:46.980
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- And now, suddenly, with the monochromatic under prints00:05:51.228
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- I have found a link,00:05:55.456
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- so I decided to look at them and try and make something of it.00:05:58.909
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- The reason it attracted me00:06:03.167
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- was the fact of it being 3D.00:06:07.163
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- This exhibition is different from my other shows00:06:10.924
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- by the fact it is probably the most sculptural one;00:06:15.222
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- coming from the paper, I really enter the space here.00:06:19.463
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- The title 'Pomoderna and Seven Monochromes'00:06:26.633
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- actually conceals sort of a deliberate strategy00:06:30.565
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- of the imperfective quality of our environment00:06:34.850
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- - we strive to be in the picture, of course,00:06:39.061
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- to reflect the very edge of what's going on right now in world00:06:43.192
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- and by the distorted title I come here with00:06:47.295
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- and present myself00:06:51.533
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- I refer as if to the fact we failed and keep failing in those efforts,00:06:55.783
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- that it reached us in our environment already in some mythologized form,00:06:59.925
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- carried over as if underhandedly, through a friend of a friend,00:07:07.096
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- and I have as if worked with this assumption00:07:11.289
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- and now bring it here to a professional environment,00:07:15.625
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- or back, to the place it had come from, or to the place we believe it had came from,00:07:19.869
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- and it's a kind of a hyperbole, a work with the essence of the concepts.00:07:23.971