Edith Jeřábková

• Let´s start with a general question00:00:04.442
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• and then we´ll go over to particular issues,00:00:06.948
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• and your experience in the past00:00:11.660
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• but if you were to briefly say00:00:13.966
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• what the work of a curator means for you,00:00:18.247
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• with view to some kind of polarity -00:00:23.246
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• is it more an analysis and creating concepts00:00:25.884
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• or an attempt at summarising certain phenomena or trends?00:00:31.923
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• Or does the curator´s work involve more individual creativity?00:00:37.245
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• or intuition, which has its own creative ambitions?00:00:45.767
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• Well, I´d say, it´s both.00:00:55.177
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• Of course, I´m interested in what is happening on the art scene,00:00:59.579
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• or how the themes, or not exactly the themes,00:01:03.915
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• but how the overall view appears and then disappears again,00:01:10.823
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• but, naturally, I have my own constructions00:01:19.506
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• that I´m concerned with, but I think its always reflection.00:01:26.165
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• It´s always linked with reflection, but often unintentional reflection.00:01:30.854
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• I often don´t even know what I´m doing.00:01:36.759
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• I simply just need - while working on an exhibition - to realize something,00:01:40.331
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• so it´s like some kind of current,00:01:55.479
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• it depends on the nature of the exhibition,00:01:59.044
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• but you get tired of one concept00:02:05.225
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• so you want to polarize it in a different direction.00:02:10.339
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• It´s really very personal.00:02:14.222
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• When we did the exhibition Comet in Futura00:02:16.774
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• I felt really completely exhausted,00:02:22.173
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• because we were exhibiting objects,00:02:27.109
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• and I don´t want to say it was wrong,00:02:30.254
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• but at that time I felt I couldn´t bring into one space,00:02:33.996
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• and especially not in the Futura gallery,00:02:38.932
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• I can´t bring all those objects and just place them there00:02:41.393
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• and open among them a kind of communication.00:02:44.854
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• I need something new to happen,00:02:51.171
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• we used to say "experimental" at that time,00:02:57.412
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• now we might say "speculative",00:03:02.185
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• so it changes a lot.00:03:05.526
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• When you say that these things are created during the process00:03:11.127
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• take form or crystalize during the process,00:03:19.255
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• so do you think that they can be categorized retroactively?00:03:22.288
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• Yes, surely. When we worked with students on the project Lapidarium00:03:32.960
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• so in the beginning I felt I had to relate somehow to the object,00:03:44.311
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• to the status of the object but I had no idea how to approach it,00:03:52.217
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• there was no theory behind it,00:04:00.556
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• the only footing was Bruno Latour00:04:04.500
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• and at that time I discussed it a bit with Karel Císař or Vítek Havránek.00:04:09.316
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• And he kept telling me that I couldn´t take00:04:19.035
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• the Latourian object in relation to a sculptural object.00:04:23.174
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• I needed to know that extension was possible,00:04:27.875
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• that it doesn´t end with Rosalinda Kraus00:04:31.030
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• but that it´s possible to continue.00:04:35.718
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• But I didn´t know in what direction.00:04:38.375
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• Only later I somehow got to the term speculative and the theories,00:04:43.317
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• for me it´s always an unknown path.00:04:51.863
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• The project somehow anticipated it.00:04:58.330
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• You studied history of art in Olomouc and graduated in the late 90s.00:05:04.989
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• Why did you decide to concentrate on contemporary art?00:05:11.245
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• Well, this university is well- known for training students00:05:17.330
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• to be good at taking care of the national heritage00:05:25.739
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• or to focus on local art history,00:05:31.902
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• the Olomouc region Baroque and Gothic art,00:05:44.214
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• but the interesting thing is that many Olomouc University graduates00:05:46.592
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• later devoted themselves to contemporary art.00:05:53.573
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• perhaps due to the lack of it at school.00:06:00.131
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• For me Rosťa Švácha was an important person,00:06:03.568
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• who taught us completely different things00:06:08.781
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• and through his lectures on architecture00:06:12.448
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• he made us think about the present.00:06:16.706
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• First I thought I would devote myself to architecture,00:06:18.336
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• but then, for personal reasons, I moved to Canada00:06:21.628
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• but I somehow couldn´t adapt there perhaps due to the language barrier.00:06:29.358
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• And in those days there weren´t many opportunities there, either.00:06:40.007
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• So then it took a really long time, I lost about ten years hesitating,00:06:44.466
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• and finally, I decided to come back, language was of utmost importance for me,00:06:54.008
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• I did write in English, but I didn´t feel the language properly,00:07:03.021
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• I missed many things, so I came back,00:07:08.487
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• but nobody remembered me here,00:07:11.582
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• so I had to start from the beginning again.00:07:17.085
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• I felt the absence of art criticism.00:07:21.925
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• Then you started working in the Gallery Klatovy- Klenová.00:07:28.111
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• and later in the Museum of Modern Art in Olomouc.00:07:35.641
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• Can you tell us about the projects you did there?00:07:39.178
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• The way I got to Klatovy was interesting.00:07:45.960
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• I had been living there for a short time before,00:07:52.696
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• I had that dream about moving from a city to the countryside,00:07:56.278
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• which some people have but it usually doesn´t work,00:08:03.478
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• Anyway, thanks to that I met Marcel Fišer,00:08:06.939
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• who offered me a job as a curator,00:08:10.666
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• although he never saw any of my exhibitions,00:08:12.915
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• I did a couple of smaller exhibitions,00:08:15.678
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• but that was in Canada. And I wrote a bit at that time.00:08:19.678
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• I began working without trying to find out first00:08:28.263
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• what the policy of the gallery was,00:08:34.004
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• there was no time for that,00:08:37.659
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• I intuitivelly wanted to focus on contemporary art.00:08:42.957
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• I knew Marcel would cover the other areas.00:08:49.499
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• So I must admit I was free to do what I wanted.00:08:56.311
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• Only later did I realize what the institution really represented.00:09:01.165
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• How important was its location and its preconditions,00:09:12.385
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• and I gradually realized I couldn´t be just a curator in a gallery,00:09:18.225
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• but I also had to act as a kind of tourist agency,00:09:24.898
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• the gallery has to be open also at weekends,00:09:34.735
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• it´s a place where people can meet,00:09:37.169
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• and the entire local scene is important.00:09:41.722
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• How to attract the attention of the local public as well as people from Prague.00:09:45.849
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• Who should the exhibitions be aimed at and so on.00:09:54.305
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• But our work was interrupted really early.00:10:01.234
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• I think you have to stay in such a type of institution much longer than three years00:10:03.030
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• because only later you begin to understand the whole structure better,00:10:10.318
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• and perhaps I would have known better what was needed to be done00:10:17.696
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• with regard to the local scene, which is extremely difficult.00:10:22.195
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• Could you tell us what was the difference between working there and in Prague?00:10:25.596
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• Are the visitors different and do they require different types of exhibitions?00:10:33.589
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• Are they acquainted with contemporary art?00:10:37.836
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• Well, it´s a completely different type of institution.00:10:41.940
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• We never conceived the exhibitons for local visitors only.00:10:44.939
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• I must admit that I personally don´t think of the visitor that much.00:10:47.285
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• I always imagine that the visitor is the same person like me.00:10:52.451
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• ... an ideal visitor...00:11:01.991
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• Well, I think there´s no need to make differences00:11:03.812
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• if you work well with the institution as a whole.00:11:09.957
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• But this is a problem, you have to first establish the institution well,00:11:16.058
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• and then the local scene will benefit,00:11:22.093
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• as well as Prague and let alone the international scene.00:11:26.161
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• It´s possible.00:11:31.136
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• I wanted to do there similar things that I had done with Michal Pěchouček00:11:32.298
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• who intervened perhaps more than I would as a curator,00:11:38.491
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• I really enjoyed the work at that time,00:11:46.875
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• and I must say my approach was rather subjective,00:11:51.785
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• I wasn´t objective, but I think in those days I was no exception.00:11:59.283
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• You also cooperated a lot with artists, didn´t you? With Jiří Kovanda.00:12:04.141
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• Not only with exhibiting artists, but also when preparing the conceptions of exhibitions.00:12:09.228
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• Can you tell us something about it?00:12:16.627
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• What was their contribution and was there a difference00:12:18.010
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• between the artist´s approach and curator´s approach?00:12:22.666
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• Karel Císař always asked me how I could do such big exhibitions with so many artists.00:12:29.092
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• I used to like meeting all the people first,00:12:40.533
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• we used to look for the form of exhibitions together.00:12:47.404
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• It was usually a result of our discussions,00:12:54.248
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• which, as I mentioned with regard to The Comet,00:12:57.822
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• is now less and less possible,00:12:59.354
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• because production is growing faster,00:13:01.372
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• so it´s becoming more and more difficult,00:13:04.964
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• and I feel I´m bothering people if I don´t have a clear idea00:13:07.744
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• of what it´s going to look like.00:13:10.067
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• So this is what I missed, but I always did the exhibitions this way in the beginning.00:13:12.508
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• Perhaps it was due to my feeling of insecurity00:13:22.008
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• because there weren´t many curators here00:13:26.571
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• we were all primarily art historians00:13:28.637
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• and dealt with different areas,00:13:31.198
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• and contemporary art was slowly appearing in institutions,00:13:32.575
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• or in newly established spaces.00:13:39.150
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• I thought it was a logical outcome of a discussion between the artists and curator.00:13:42.550
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• We always had this joint approach00:13:48.823
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• and I always enjoyed working with someone00:13:52.963
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• because I enjoy talking about the exhibition with someone.00:13:57.393
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• Or when I can approach someone with it.00:14:00.710
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• I worked with Lenka Vítková from the beginning, before Jirka Kovanda,00:14:07.248
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• we prepared The Head Hunters in Klatovy gallery00:14:12.405
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• and Marcel gave me complete freedom there to do what I wanted.00:14:17.030
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• It was a nice time in my curator´s career00:14:26.566
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• because the institution gave me complete freedom.00:14:32.042
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• He came just before it was finished and said : Hmm, good.00:14:37.941
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• I´ve never experienced this before00:14:41.743
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• although I hadn´t worked in any institution before,00:14:44.127
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• but I think it would have been difficult to experience something similar00:14:47.638
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• in institutions which were run by strong personalities.00:14:53.165
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• This was really nice.00:14:57.100
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• When I did another exhibition in Klatovy with Jiří Kovanda in 2008,00:14:59.223
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• that was his retrospective exhibition,00:15:07.550
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• during which I realized that his works will soon be scattered around the world,00:15:10.544
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• and that it will be very difficult to bring them together,00:15:17.513
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• so I decided his whole work should be shown in context,00:15:20.759
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• because it had never been presented this way before.00:15:27.894
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• When we worked on this exhibition together00:15:33.890
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• we had a couple of heated discussions, which pushed us forward,00:15:36.497
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• and he taught me how to do a lot of things in an easier way,00:15:43.617
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• and that there´s no need to manipulate situations,00:15:48.770
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• because a certain easiness in approach is always nice.00:15:53.718
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• I was stubborn and sometimes did things on purpose,00:15:57.915
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• I was a bit rebellious,00:16:05.199
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• which resulted in quite a good dialogue.00:16:10.125
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• I´m interested in a methodological aspect of your work.00:16:14.001
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• When you are in the course of preparing an exhibition do you first choose the artists00:16:17.810
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• or does the exhibition crystalize on the basis of you having seen a certain amount of art works00:16:34.389
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• and artists, and at some point you feel it´s worth to organize an exhibition,00:16:47.372
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• or do you have an idea or let´s say a theme or a general vision,00:16:53.293
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• into which you later try to fit in things which would express or represent that idea.00:17:04.634
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• I think it starts with observing the art works and then comes an idea,00:17:17.554
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• and from there you start creating the construction again.00:17:36.986
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• I think it´s a sort of zig-zag motion.00:17:43.217
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• But of course it depends on the type of exhibition.00:17:46.727
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• If we speak about exhibitions, which I choose to do,00:17:53.280
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• so they stem from my observing of what´s happening on the art scene,00:17:58.954
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• and then... perhaps I would compare it to a book,00:18:04.986
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• you first follow something and then you write an essay,00:18:11.075
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• it´s a bit similar.00:18:15.396
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• The construction is there, it´s not just a collection of themes00:18:18.007
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• of artists of that time.00:18:29.618
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• That´s not the case.00:18:32.705
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• I think the approaches blend together a lot, at least in my case they do.00:18:36.011
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• But every exhibition has its own strong points.00:18:43.082
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• I think there is always a certain level of speculation,00:18:48.638
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• I never really know what I´m doing and that´s what I like about it.00:18:53.795
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• And isn´t this the artistic or creative feature?00:19:00.637
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• When I listen to what you say I feel that this expresses what artists often do.00:19:07.003
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• The process is in fact the course.00:19:15.228
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• But I´d say this applies in general.00:19:19.277
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• The idea of exhibitions in the 19th or 20th centuries, the World Fairs...00:19:22.317
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• modern exhibitions nowadays don´t work that way.00:19:33.431
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• >From the days of Duchamp, simply said.00:19:41.215
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• This is the way exhibitions are done, it´s not mine,00:19:46.895
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• the curator is not more than the artist,00:19:53.093
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• of course, the two fields blend,00:19:58.085
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• but the exhibition format has changed.00:20:00.970
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• It´s no longer an encyclopaedia conveying knowledge,00:20:03.853
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• or having a representational function,00:20:12.988
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• but it is a creative activity00:20:16.206
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• on the part of the curator.00:20:18.693
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• I think it´s not specific of my work.00:20:20.701
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• I prefer searching for things more than coming up with theories,00:20:22.946
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• although it always ends up there,00:20:33.741
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• it can always be reflected as a part of this or that...00:20:37.924
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• perhaps it´s also my unfamiliarity,00:20:44.499
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• but it may be also linked with what I´m doing now at the school,00:20:48.323
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• and I´m a bit afraid that one day somebody will judge...00:21:01.229
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• ...like the Ševčíks are judged now...00:21:10.144
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• stressing they had their constructions connected with the West,00:21:12.898
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• and that they transfered them on the artists,00:21:16.107
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• and when I later entered the world of education,00:21:20.514
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• and started doing projects with my students,00:21:31.785
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• I realized that I enjoyed working on projects and not knowing exactly what I was working on.00:21:35.008
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• Sometimes you feel terribly desperate,00:21:43.156
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• and you can´t tell the students what they should do00:21:46.631
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• because you yourself don´t know.00:21:50.739
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• And everyone is walking on thin ice,00:21:52.272
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• nobody knows which direction to take,00:21:56.626
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• there´s no leadership and that´s what I enjoy.00:21:59.242
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• I´m afraid, well not afraid really, but I guess I´ll be criticised one day,00:22:01.657
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• that I bring my libido into the field of education,00:22:08.441
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• well, I don´t know.00:22:15.139
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• When you mentioned that you influence your students in some ways,00:22:18.120
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• so you also said you realized some team projects,00:22:22.169
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• in which the hierarchy of teachers and students to a certain degree disappears,00:22:29.693
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• resulting in some kind of collective thinking,00:22:37.617
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• that you share with other guests, artists, and so on,00:22:41.189
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• can you see in your own curator´s work actual aspects00:22:45.783
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• which were influenced by your long experience as a teacher00:22:56.687
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• and let´s say your collective, non-hierarchic work?00:23:04.062
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• Well, perhaps I could, but at this moment I can´t come to a conclusion...00:23:14.085
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• perhaps it´s more apparent in a different field,00:23:17.277
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• we established with Zuzana Blochová a non-profit art organization called Are,00:23:21.777
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• where we are concerned with the education format itself.00:23:35.274
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• We feel that this is where contemporary art can take place,00:23:40.628
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• and what is important for me is the fact that I think we still need a connection00:23:54.036
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• with the surrounding world,00:24:03.024
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• it may sound like an awful cliché,00:24:06.311
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• people keep talking about our isolation,00:24:08.562
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• which is no longer true,00:24:13.493
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• however, I think that with view to the development in the world,00:24:15.836
• 00:24:15.836
• and I don´t want to be eschatological, art should be transnational.00:24:23.297
• 00:24:23.297
• I´m afraid of national concepts and closing up,00:24:31.632
• 00:24:31.632
• without wanting to mention any forerunners,00:24:35.624
• 00:24:35.624
• for instance the international surrealist movement,00:24:41.595
• 00:24:41.595
• so I feel it´s very important for the future development.00:24:49.822
• 00:24:49.822
• So certain interconnecting, collective work,00:24:54.068
• 00:24:54.068
• is what matters, we don´t care so much for exhibitions, presenting and representation of art,00:24:58.335
• 00:24:58.335
• what´s important is joint work without national aspects,00:25:06.292
• 00:25:06.292
• that´s what we are interested in.00:25:13.964
• 00:25:13.964
• I think this is what we do with our students.00:25:15.862
• 00:25:15.862
• While the hierarchy disappears, the process of thinking through practice is very important.00:25:21.600
• 00:25:21.600
• This is how it manifests itself, but perhaps it´s difficult to say00:25:33.648
• 00:25:33.648
• if it´s transfered from one to another, it´s mutual.00:25:36.442
• 00:25:36.442
• It may be related to the crisis of the model,00:25:40.660
• 00:25:40.660
• as is known in the eastern part of Europe,00:25:43.468
• 00:25:43.468
• in studios theory and practice are clearly divided,00:25:47.757
• 00:25:47.757
• and you surely also aim at mingling of genres00:25:51.357
• 00:25:51.357
• which contributes to the character of the exhibitions.00:25:55.902
• 00:25:55.902
• Exactly, and the fact that it is run by an artist, I´m not a theoretician,00:26:00.107
• 00:26:00.107
• so the realization through practice is of utmost importance.00:26:09.260
• 00:26:09.260
• And I realize that we are terrible producers00:26:16.941
• 00:26:16.941
• and we have very little time for reflection,00:26:28.805
• 00:26:28.805
• or no time at all,00:26:34.266
• 00:26:34.266
• so we are producers, intermediaries,00:26:37.418
• 00:26:37.418
• and that this is a kind of shortcut,00:26:41.915
• 00:26:41.915
• enabling us to get to individual thoughts or opinions.00:26:44.213
• 00:26:44.213
• Through the intermediation it is really a shortcut00:26:52.483
• 00:26:52.483
• and so it´s important to connect with the right people00:26:55.655
• 00:26:55.655
• who won´t come just to give a lecture00:27:00.841
• 00:27:00.841
• but who will really cooperate with us.00:27:04.934

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