Michal Novotný

• Did you have an idea what the program should look like?00:00:04.336
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• Or how you would like to run the institution?00:00:09.450
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• Yes, I expected you to ask.00:00:13.922
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• I feel that the local context is important,00:00:16.502
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• the local context is given,00:00:25.572
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• we belong to the four art centres in Prague,00:00:27.461
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• the other three are Tranzit Display, Meet Factory and DOX.00:00:31.119
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• I think in this order they also cover the spectrum from art for art00:00:36.427
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• to the instrumentalization of art.00:00:44.154
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• Perhaps, in general we are closer to Tranzit Display and Meet Factory.00:00:48.055
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• but we still find research and experiments important,00:00:56.735
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• we don´t lay emphasis on visitor numbers,00:01:05.018
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• I don´t think visitors have to understand everything,00:01:09.761
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• they should mainly be able to experience art.00:01:12.645
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• We don´t focus on a certain type of art such as Tranzit Display.00:01:15.982
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• From the very start Futura aimed at covering the art spectrum,00:01:21.767
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• which is a wild goose chase,00:01:27.562
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• but we try to cover the wide spectrum of concepts in contemporary art.00:01:29.289
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• Of course, what is symptomatic of this institution00:01:34.728
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• is the fact that when it opened the other three art centres didn´t exist,00:01:39.606
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• and neither did most of the institutions, projects and galleries that exist today.00:01:43.491
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• It was established in order to fill this gap,00:01:49.023
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• which to a certain degree still exists at present.00:01:54.937
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• That´s why we keep trying to fill in these gaps,00:01:57.771
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• because there´s still no museum of contemporary art here,00:02:02.330
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• The National Gallery works but not on a standard, professional level,00:02:08.019
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• when compared with the Prague City Gallery.00:02:14.110
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• In this respect we concentrate more on the local art scene,00:02:16.552
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• above all on older artists, on exhibitions which are in a way retrospective shows,00:02:22.755
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• but due to our financial capacity we are not able to show the artist´s work00:02:29.073
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• in such a broad context as a large institution can.00:02:34.372
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• But we have the space to do it.00:02:36.553
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• We can present the work to the public in a large space.00:02:38.425
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• And another thing - Alberto founded Futura00:02:41.955
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• also with view to foreign art which wasn´t presented here in those days.00:02:48.648
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• We still show foreign art but now it´s more selective.00:02:55.600
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• The goal is to introduce only a certain type of foreign art,00:03:02.628
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• which is either somehow linked to the local art scene,00:03:06.003
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• or Central and Eastern Europe,00:03:10.802
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• or it has something to tell us.00:03:14.355
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• I think the works have to be carefully selected.00:03:17.810
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• You said the visitors do not have to understand what is shown at the exhibition,00:03:20.831
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• they should rather feel the experience.00:03:27.556
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• If we forget for the time being the role of the curator00:03:29.622
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• and the Futura institution00:03:34.964
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• and if we generalize your curator´s work in other institutions and abroad,00:03:37.023
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• do you think about the public in advance, do you think about "the ideal viewer"?00:03:45.265
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• And if so, could you describe him?00:03:56.462
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• Perhaps it sounds arrogant, but I don´t think so.00:04:02.131
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• A couple of years ago, perhaps ten, I went with a friend to the National Gallery00:04:04.899
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• to see the permanent exhibition00:04:16.919
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• and he´s a guy with no education,00:04:19.413
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• who has no idea what00:04:21.184
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• But his observations were much more profound than mine.00:04:27.659
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• I can´t avoid categorizing,00:04:33.131
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• if there´s purple it must be Art Nouveau and so on.00:04:36.014
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• So you certainly can´t expect ideal types of viewers,00:04:40.292
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• but there is a great demand on openness.00:04:44.978
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• In fact, I almost never verbalize what art is00:04:47.975
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• because I think it´s not right00:04:56.247
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• and I try to guide the viewers in different ways,00:04:59.968
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• by the exhibition design or by the selection of art works00:05:05.152
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• or by the text, which is, however, never explicit,00:05:08.639
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• and I enable them to gain some kind of experience.00:05:10.690
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• I think that art is a kind of science,00:05:13.330
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• since it is a comprehensive domain of human endeavor,00:05:18.418
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• and which produces knowledge.00:05:22.928
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• But it is not that positivist, exact, quantifiable knowledge,00:05:26.809
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• and that means that art historians00:05:31.712
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• should not relate to it in this way.00:05:36.367
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• It doesn´t mean it cannot be expressed by words,00:05:39.985
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• but perhaps it´s better done indirectly than explicitly.00:05:45.830
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• I hope the visitors will be able to experience00:05:49.772
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• or understand - that´s the wrong word again -00:05:56.363
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• too rational again and I´d like to avoid this,00:05:59.930
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• perhaps intuitively feel what I´m trying to say through the exhibitions.00:06:03.891
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• One of the things I find specific, which may sound arrogant again,00:06:08.635
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• is the fact that the exhibitions I do are not thematical.00:06:16.652
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• And they are neither illustrative.00:06:21.034
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• This means that most curators in the Czech Republic00:06:27.423
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• work the following way:00:06:32.713
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• they start with a thesis and then they try to find some corresponding works.00:06:34.297
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• But what I do is I start with the art works,00:06:39.350
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• which means there are works I´m interested in,00:06:46.530
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• sometimes it´s just one single work,00:06:49.624
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• and then I start gathering the other things.00:06:51.424
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• I can mention the last exhibition in Karlin Studios as an example.00:06:55.780
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• Preliminary Sadness.00:07:00.531
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• The key work which shaped the exhibition00:07:02.264
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• was the video by Jaspers Spicero,00:07:05.794
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• which has a specific atmosphere,00:07:09.448
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• and which refers to different topics00:07:11.642
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• such as sadness, youth, emptiness00:07:15.077
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• but at the same time they have a specific, cinematic sensitivity,00:07:20.148
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• which we all know well, because we grew up watching movies,00:07:26.985
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• and so we understand different genres.00:07:30.193
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• We are able to decode messages in a spontaneous and very sophisticated way.00:07:35.207
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• Even as regards fashion, for instance,00:07:42.398
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• we immediately find a historical context for everything.00:07:44.620
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• So I create a grouping of other art works around one particular work of art00:07:47.437
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• which are meant to further develop it in a certain way.00:07:52.555
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• The surrounding space is, of course, also a part of it.00:07:56.366
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• The space is not only the space for the works of art,00:08:00.085
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• but a part of the entire situation,00:08:03.696
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• which is perhaps more like scenography00:08:05.271
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• creating a situation into which the visitor enters00:08:07.176
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• and it should be full of overwhelming emotions,00:08:12.292
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• and prepare him for some sort of activity.00:08:14.193
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• I don´t mean any performance, it´s rather a sort of scenography.00:08:16.903
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• In this case, the space of the former Karlin Studios,00:08:21.417
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• which also has an obvious atmosphere,00:08:27.338
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• was a part of the whole situation.00:08:30.519
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• That´s why I´m not really interested in the White Cube.00:08:32.976
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• Maybe I´m interested in its demagogy.00:08:37.689
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• But otherwise I prefer working in other spaces,00:08:42.768
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• which are not neutral00:08:46.484
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• because nothing is neutral,00:08:48.902
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• everything has some sort of style.00:08:50.575
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• And then you need to make the theme visible00:08:53.167
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• indirectly, also through the title and text.00:08:57.792
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• I agree with what Anna Daučíková said,00:09:04.288
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• that art is visualization of the invisible.00:09:11.282
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• I think that exhibitions should also be visualizations of the invisible.00:09:14.292
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• The art works should not illustrate the exhibitions but vice versa,00:09:19.194
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• the exhibitions should illustrate the works.00:09:22.808
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• Everything shown at an exhibition should somehow relate to the approaches,00:09:25.680
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• concepts and mechanisms which are present in the art works.00:09:29.873
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• I have read a review of the exhibition you´re talking about00:09:35.457
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• in which Tereza Hrušková said that you didn´t use labels there00:09:40.430
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• and that it gave her a feeling of collective authorship00:09:45.745
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• and I think that in connection with your name00:09:48.043
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• we often hear about the changing role of curators or artists.00:09:50.287
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• You participate actively, do you work deliberately with your contributions?00:09:55.015
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• Yes, of course. I always claim, with a little bit of irony,00:10:02.998
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• that I´m also an artist.00:10:08.951
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• I think a curator surely is an artist00:10:12.005
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• and perhaps it´s better to admit it in advance00:10:14.497
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• because then he will treat the other artists with the same respect.00:10:16.892
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• The problem is that sometimes the curators feel they have a different position,00:10:22.225
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• and the power they have comes earlier,00:10:29.271
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• than in the case of artists,00:10:32.670
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• the curator tends to show his power a bit,00:10:34.082
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• so this might be helpful.00:10:36.643
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• I also say, and the artists at this exhibition noticed,00:10:39.406
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• that I manipulate the things. Of course I do.00:10:44.585
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• I think everybody is manipulative, and that´s why I intentionally manipulate more intensively,00:10:48.445
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• so that my manipulation is visible.00:10:55.486
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• Because for me this is perhaps the only way how to get rid of it00:10:57.911
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• or how to work with it,00:11:02.379
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• I extrapolate it to such an extent00:11:03.750
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• that everybody must see it´s not like that.00:11:06.102
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• I have always been interested in the relation between the whole and its parts,00:11:08.590
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• and the way we try to influence the interpretation.00:11:14.918
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• That´s why I never work in this objective sense of the word,00:11:19.257
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• and I never postulate any tendencies or phenomena,00:11:24.146
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• I´d never say something was happening in art.00:11:27.646
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• And if I do, it´s usually irony.00:11:31.431
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• I usually speak about archetypal situations,00:11:34.089
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• because I feel it´s important in live art,00:11:38.058
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• everybody needs some kind of categories00:11:43.428
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• so that they can navigate through this unbearably varied world.00:11:45.401
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• I´d rather avoid this, I wouldn´t like to say there was post-internet here,00:11:49.192
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• I find all these categories a bit problematic.00:11:54.860
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• Exhibitions that try to prove the existence of these tendencies are really questionable.00:11:57.908
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• So I think it can be present but in a different way.00:12:03.287
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• Perhaps they should manipulate the art works more and act in a more artistic manner.00:12:07.457
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• In the end everyone would benefit from this.00:12:14.218
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• So we are touching on a paradox, which, I think, might work,00:12:18.100
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• but I´d like to speak about it in more detail.00:12:23.689
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• On one hand you say that we need to begin with the art works,00:12:27.081
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• everything should be based on what is already present in the works,00:12:33.555
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• and make it more intensive,00:12:39.259
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• but on the other hand there is the manipulation.00:12:40.586
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• Could you give us an example and describe00:12:42.772
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• how these seemingly contradictory processes can work together?00:12:47.221
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• I think this is a question of intuition.00:12:58.073
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• You can´t really learn to become a curator.00:12:59.784
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• You can´t come up with a series of instructions00:13:05.520
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• and pass them on to someone.00:13:10.003
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• You must try to design exhibitions which are neither too vague nor too factual.00:13:12.870
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• This is the problem. What does it mean exactly?00:13:18.418
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• We don´t want the hats -00:13:20.805
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• one is purple, the other´s with fur, the next one is green...00:13:24.133
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• but still hats.00:13:27.435
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• The exhibition must not break into fragments,00:13:28.433
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• with the things having nothing in common,00:13:34.077
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• apart from being in one space.00:13:35.936
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• Perhaps it´s a question of intuition,00:13:38.103
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• in the course of years I have gone through a number of procedures,00:13:41.056
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• which I tried to apply in the beginning.00:13:48.882
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• Perhaps it´s a heritage, for example in the case of Václav Magid,00:13:50.564
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• who also worked with this,00:13:57.484
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• to chose a theme is absurd.00:13:59.576
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• I think that his exhibition Contemporary Czech Cubism a couple of years ago00:14:02.945
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• was too absurd.00:14:09.470
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• I prepared the exhibition called Monochrome,00:14:12.999
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• which in fact was not about the classical monochrome,00:14:16.345
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• which we all understand as a one-colour painting00:14:22.528
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• but it was all more about the theme of absence,00:14:25.599
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• which means that playing around with categories,00:14:28.266
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• which are visibly not present in the works,00:14:32.156
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• can then lay emphasis on others.00:14:37.552
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• It also counts with the fact that absence always stresses something.00:14:40.154
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• Absence exists only thanks to our expecting the presence.00:14:44.468
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• There has been a certain shift, because the last few exhibitions,00:14:50.374
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• I have focused mainly on the scenography.00:14:55.561
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• The two exhibitions in the Czech Centres -00:14:58.511
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• Typography in Rotterdam and Liturgy in Paris -00:15:03.511
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• are in fact primarily scenographies, architectures,00:15:06.685
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• or something that exists in the space.00:15:12.369
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• The works of art create the space.00:15:15.667
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• This is of course difficult to justify verbally,00:15:18.806
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• or rationally, the contradiction which you mentioned.00:15:28.358
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• I think contradiction always has to be present,00:15:33.152
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• and I always try to include a contradictory element in the exhibitions,00:15:36.350
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• as well as an element of humour and irony00:15:41.250
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• to show I don´t mean it,00:15:45.770
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• nobody can think I´m serious00:15:48.292
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• because nowadays you can´t say anything serious without a bit of irony.00:15:49.822
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• It´s the same as when I write the Letter to the Corinthians00:15:55.197
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• which is very challenging, and nobody can believe it,00:16:02.393
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• because it is exaggerated.00:16:06.561
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• And the truth is somewhere in between.00:16:08.024
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• But I´m not able to justify this beyond the existence of the exhibition.00:16:10.540
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• I´d like to ask about the irony that you mentioned.00:16:18.909
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• How does it manifest itself?00:16:23.255
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• Many people could find a specific philosophical line in your work00:16:25.466
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• and for many people this could be trend-setting.00:16:35.186
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• How do you heighten the irony?00:16:42.132
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• How do you undermine it?00:16:46.132
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• By the dogmatism of the statements.00:16:50.794
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• For instance, if we go back to the Liturgy,00:16:54.330
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• so the text says that art is religion.00:16:59.144
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• And I believe this is true.00:17:01.805
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• Religion first exists as a kind of dogma,00:17:04.344
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• then we all undermined it,00:17:10.505
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• and today we see it from the dialectic position00:17:12.281
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• as something we have rejected.00:17:17.932
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• When I was a teenager, I had to send my parents to hell00:17:20.855
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• after their first overwhelming evaluation, so as to get a more realistic picture between the two.00:17:25.823
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• The Hegelian Dialectic all the time.00:17:35.973
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• A synthesis you cannot get rid of, I think, even nowadays.00:17:38.216
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• So the irony is that I don´t mean it seriously,00:17:42.986
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• I don´t state that art is religion00:17:48.951
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• but in way it is, of course,00:17:51.191
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• because it detaches you from society and makes you a part of a group of people00:17:52.493
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• who share similar opinions.00:17:57.528
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• But in a way it is an overstatement,00:18:00.818
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• or let´s say exaggeration.00:18:04.799
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• Another example is the exhibition in Vienna called Café Flesh.00:18:08.033
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• The actual title is exaggerated.00:18:17.709
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• And the entire architecture of the kind of night club,00:18:21.357
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• which I created using only the art works,00:18:24.973
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• which is the limitation that I always follow,00:18:28.197
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• I only add to the space what is already there00:18:31.097
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• and the actual works.00:18:34.720
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• I do not work with any other elements.00:18:36.339
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• For me this is the main limit, which I find interesting.00:18:38.652
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• Trying to make something out of something that you haven´t made.00:18:42.044
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• And naturally, there´s some tension,00:18:46.641
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• you have the elements of art which are not under your control,00:18:50.057
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• it´s just the result you have under control.00:18:54.769
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• The aesthetics there is also exaggerated,00:18:56.036
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• as regards the grouping of the works,00:19:00.157
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• the things are in a way so similar,00:19:03.458
• 00:19:03.458
• that they are dissimilar.00:19:05.451
• 00:19:05.451
• There´s an attempt at creating tension00:19:07.807
• 00:19:07.807
• of some of the elements in the exhibition00:19:09.496
• 00:19:09.496
• in order to enable some kind of coexistence of the things.00:19:14.376
• 00:19:14.376
• And do you really think it´s trend-setting? I´ve never thought of it.00:19:18.226
• 00:19:18.226
• Your last exhibitions deal with themes which are often reflected,00:19:24.545
• 00:19:24.545
• for instance post-internet or object-oriented ontology,00:19:34.592
• 00:19:34.592
• so naturally it comes to your mind.00:19:39.150
• 00:19:39.150
• And it´s difficult to tell to what extent you are being ironical.00:19:41.503
• 00:19:41.503
• That´s exactly what I was hoping for.00:19:48.172
• 00:19:48.172
• I think that the only power of art lies in this uncertainty.00:19:50.397
• 00:19:50.397
• All works of art that captured my attention00:19:57.770
• 00:19:57.770
• were marked by uncertainty.00:20:03.137
• 00:20:03.137
• but not uncertainty in the sense whether I like it or not,00:20:05.427
• 00:20:05.427
• uncertainty because I don´t know what it means,00:20:08.475
• 00:20:08.475
• and this is the only thing art can do - undermine our certainties.00:20:11.518
• 00:20:11.518
• The normativeness which kills me from the very start,00:20:18.411
• 00:20:18.411
• with people doing things just because it´s somehow expected.00:20:22.321
• 00:20:22.321
• I don´t want to say that everybody has to live an authentic life,00:20:25.977
• 00:20:25.977
• join the guerrilla and go and fight somewhere,00:20:29.193
• 00:20:29.193
• that´s also nonsense, of course.00:20:32.428
• 00:20:32.428
• We´d rather try to reflect these things in certain cycles,00:20:35.386
• 00:20:35.386
• and play around with them to show the different sides.00:20:40.309
• 00:20:40.309
• I reflect this because I´m interested in history,00:20:44.241
• 00:20:44.241
• I´m interested in the moment when things become outdated,00:20:47.896
• 00:20:47.896
• the moment of dilettantism.00:20:53.425
• 00:20:53.425
• In a way, art is dilettantism,00:20:55.028
• 00:20:55.028
• constantly absorbing different elements,00:20:58.890
• 00:20:58.890
• but not using them in depth but rather superficially.00:21:01.200
• 00:21:01.200
• Czech Cubism is dilettantism, isn´t it?00:21:04.446
• 00:21:04.446
• And it´s great!00:21:07.400
• 00:21:07.400
• And it´s the same with object-oriented ontology.00:21:08.475
• 00:21:08.475
• Nobody knows properly what it means.00:21:12.214
• 00:21:12.214
• I´d like to know if you work with it in a specific way in the Czech milieu,00:21:16.013
• 00:21:16.013
• where the ignorance is perhaps bigger...00:21:20.212
• 00:21:20.212
• And perhaps enables a bigger amount of irony...00:21:24.770
• 00:21:24.770
• Stop being such flagellants!00:21:30.073
• 00:21:30.073
• I think that it´s not much worse here than in other places.00:21:32.376
• 00:21:32.376
• At least the dogmatism of this discourse is not so pervasive,00:21:36.048
• 00:21:36.048
• perhaps people don´t understand it properly,00:21:41.762
• 00:21:41.762
• and it´s not so wide-spread here,00:21:43.601
• 00:21:43.601
• in London for instance everybody will tell you the same rubbish,00:21:45.063
• 00:21:45.063
• and what drives me crazy are all those clichés,00:21:49.719
• 00:21:49.719
• the existence of clichés, which also helps people to function,00:21:55.519
• 00:21:55.519
• but the fact that we tell each other something we both know,00:21:59.961
• 00:21:59.961
• for example "you can´t just enjoy your job"00:22:03.844
• 00:22:03.844
• - eternal truths which justify the legitimacy of the system.00:22:08.514
• 00:22:08.514
• So this is something similar.00:22:14.243
• 00:22:14.243
• It comes here perhaps later, but the mutation is sometimes more interesting.00:22:17.234
• 00:22:17.234
• I wouldn´t be so pessimistic.00:22:24.477
• 00:22:24.477
• The problem is that we keep oscillating between local authenticity00:22:29.827
• 00:22:29.827
• and the aim at imitating western trends.00:22:36.717
• 00:22:36.717
• We are constantly oscillating.00:22:40.698
• 00:22:40.698
• What are we supposed to do? Where do we belong?00:22:44.222
• 00:22:44.222
• Perhaps it´s right.00:22:48.087
• 00:22:48.087
• Wherever I go, the first thing people ask me is where I come from.00:22:51.124
• 00:22:51.124
• It´s interesting to what extent these things are important nowadays.00:22:58.293
• 00:22:58.293
• I say I´m from the Czech Republic00:23:02.540
• 00:23:02.540
• and everyone sees the frame with beer and hammer and sickle, the Baroque00:23:03.942
• 00:23:03.942
• and whatever... as if all this was important.00:23:08.357
• 00:23:08.357
• but it is still important.00:23:10.530
• 00:23:10.530
• And that´s why it´s interesting to work with it00:23:11.896
• 00:23:11.896
• also from the historical point of view,00:23:15.399
• 00:23:15.399
• our country has always been on the border00:23:17.315
• 00:23:17.315
• and will never belong neither here or there.00:23:18.820
• 00:23:18.820
• The problem is that we always fall either here or there.00:23:21.033
• 00:23:21.033
• At present we belong more to the West00:23:26.230
• 00:23:26.230
• and we try to do the imitations,00:23:29.216
• 00:23:29.216
• but this is what the Polish also know well...00:23:31.395
• 00:23:31.395
• and on the other hand there is a large number of outstanding artists here.00:23:34.605
• 00:23:34.605
• and the older I am the more of them I see.00:23:41.250
• 00:23:41.250
• If you chose a group of artists for me, I can work with anyone.00:23:47.468
• 00:23:47.468
• I think that the role of a curator is to find the good things,00:23:54.419
• 00:23:54.419
• and not only to chose only what has been acknowledged.00:23:57.913
• 00:23:57.913
• And the main problem of art nowadays is conformity.00:24:01.041
• 00:24:01.041
• Most institutions and curators in fact acknowledge what had already been acknowledged.00:24:06.376
• 00:24:06.376
• In these small exhibitions, which have no budgets,00:24:14.928
• 00:24:14.928
• I try to work with the youngest artists,00:24:20.214
• 00:24:20.214
• and people I meet accidentally,00:24:23.206
• 00:24:23.206
• our paths cross naturally..00:24:25.487
• 00:24:25.487
• I think that these things, which you speak about, are present00:24:28.498
• 00:24:28.498
• and there´s no need to try and make them more present,00:24:38.711
• 00:24:38.711
• perhaps just to find some associations.00:24:41.008

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