Memories of the Future II on Artyčok

The exhibition Memories of the Future II focuses on one of the key subjects in contemporary art – the artistic exploration of memory, history or archives. The artists presenting their work at this exhibition live and work in three post-communist countries of Central Europe – the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. From the viewpoint of contemporary art, this region seems to have great potential as an extremely rich „archaeological site“ since following the events of 1989, the forty-year-long period of state socialism was quickly erased from memory, only to return after ten years time in two conflicting forms – as a subject of sentimental recollections of „the good old days“ and as the „spectre of communism“. The works displayed at the exhibition deal with a whole range of themes, including investigations into the mechanisms of memory, work with a found image as well as a specific interest in the subject of utopia and visions of the future not only under socialism.
„Archival impulse“, „archaeological imagination“, „modernology“ or „historiographic turn“… today art theory is looking for ways of naming and understanding trends in contemporary art on which the present exhibition focuses. In recent years we have witnessed a really great interest in reviewing modernist language (in the Czech republic let us mention the successs of the painter Vladimír Houdek, last year´s winner of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award). However, the present attempts to return to the period of modernity are more and more often motivated by a revived interest in the future. The reasons for this interest must be sought in the very nature of our present: stagnating late capitalism, a general feeling of insecurity and the periodically recurring crises which spill over from the economic sphere into all areas of social life. The thing that contemporary artists developing archaeological imagination are looking for is not just any past but specifically the „past future“, i.e. unrealised, unused or forgotten versions of the future that could offer an alternative to the unsatisfactory present.

Memories of the Future II.00:00:01.066
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Memories of the Future II is a project00:00:03.422
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following up the exhibition prepared by Karel Císař.00:00:05.837
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The exhibition Memories of the Future00:00:08.655
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took place in the Václav Špála Gallery00:00:10.489
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in Prague in00:00:12.529
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presented artists who make use00:00:14.602
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of modernist morphology at their work.00:00:18.401
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Karel Císař as well as other curators abroad00:00:22.779
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make use of this tendency00:00:25.581
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and the expression modernology.00:00:27.686
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It's a part of a broader tendency00:00:30.164
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in contemporary art which makes use of00:00:32.796
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formal language of modernism and avant-garde.00:00:35.882
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This exhibition doesn't deal with00:00:39.243
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formal language of modernism but00:00:41.866
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rather with more general issues,00:00:45.121
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for example how was modernism directed at future.00:00:47.053
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It presents artists who generally work with00:00:53.577
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specific fundamental issues and the theme00:00:57.174
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of archive, memory or history.00:00:59.912
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They make use of conformal tendencies00:01:04.652
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to formulate questions referring00:01:08.084
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to our presence or our future.00:01:11.181
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There are seven artists and one artistic couple.00:01:14.384
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Behind me are paintings by Vasil Artamonov and Alexey Klyuykov,00:01:18.055
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then there are Polish artists Janek Simon and00:01:22.861
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Agnieszka Polska representing the incoming generation,00:01:26.152
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Slovakian platform is represented by00:01:30.397
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Svätopluk Mikyta and from the Czech artists00:01:32.467
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there's also Zbyněk Baladrán and Václav Magid.00:01:35.560
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It can't be said they all together exemplify00:01:38.778
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the exhibition's conception as each artist works00:01:41.484
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with his own specific method.00:01:43.797
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Zbyněk Baladrán deals with the issue of00:01:46.479
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memory and archaeology, he goes partially back to00:01:49.012
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his older project called The Table00:01:52.884
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presented in 2007 in the Moravian Gallery.00:01:54.597
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Václav Magid works with a certain leitmotiv,00:01:58.603
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a song by Viktor Tsoi from 1986,00:02:03.536
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which was an unofficial hymn00:02:07.959
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of perestroika in the Soviet Union.00:02:09.766
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He made a symbolic map00:02:11.559
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whose geographic formations refer to00:02:14.771
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unfulfilled ambitions or dreams from the00:02:19.479
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breakthrough era in 1989.00:02:24.415
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Svätopluk Mikyta uses methods that00:02:28.124
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have been steadily present at his work00:02:30.888
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for the past ten years.00:02:34.227
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He works with found material.00:02:35.434
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There are picture publications of00:02:37.771
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the Slovakian provenance between 1940s and 1970s00:02:39.987
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divided into three main topics:00:02:44.366
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the landscape connected with the myth of nation,00:02:46.250
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the state construction era: big socialist buildings,00:02:49.249
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water works and the last series is00:02:54.766
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the work from the socialist reality,00:03:00.074
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which is housing estate reality.00:03:03.365
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There is no point in talking about00:03:06.261
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technical methods as it would take very long.00:03:07.644
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I really wanted to present the work00:03:09.750
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of Janek Simon and Agnieszka Polska.00:03:12.042
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Their work is connected with the place Auroville,00:03:15.890
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an utopian village founded00:03:21.357
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in the late00:03:23.693
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which exists till now.00:03:25.586
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Janek Simon went there with a group00:03:28.023
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of Polish artists to find out how the00:03:30.643
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community works in present days.00:03:32.841
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Agnieszka Polska made there a part of her film Hair,00:03:35.012
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the name of course refers to the famous musical00:03:38.345
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by Miloš Forman from the beginning of 1970s.00:03:41.727
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As well as the Forman's film,00:03:46.117
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Agnieszka Polska also deals with00:03:48.078
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the issue of desire for freedom00:03:49.857
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and going beyond limits.00:03:52.646
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Both Simon's and Agnieszka's film00:03:55.250
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take 50 minutes and they are highlights00:03:57.859
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of the exhibition but they certainly shouldn't00:04:02.208
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overshadow the work of the others.00:04:04.805
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Vasil Artamonov and Alexey Klyuykov00:04:06.495
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work in the same way they tried out00:04:10.385
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in the regional gallery of Vysočina00:04:14.655
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in Jihlava at the exhibition called 2076.00:04:16.126
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It's a combination of bestowed artwork00:04:19.157
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from various collections,00:04:21.834
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in this case it's the Moravian Gallery in Brno,00:04:22.917
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where they have borrowed seven or eight00:04:25.659
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objects from the00:04:27.870
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The artwork formally belong to the socialist realism00:04:31.387
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and the artists develop a certain dialogue with them,00:04:37.409
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not affirmatively but rather dialectically.00:04:41.125
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They go back to the topics that were included00:04:47.066
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but they look at them rather from00:04:50.015
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a melancholic distance which is typical of their work.00:04:52.121
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A certain starting point or precondition00:04:57.290
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of the exhibition is a general00:05:00.522
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reflection of our presence.00:05:03.591
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We live in time which can hardly00:05:05.429
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see future meaningfully or optimistically.00:05:09.232
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The world is in an economic stagnancy,00:05:13.326
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the freedom and human rights are not developed.00:05:16.974
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All this gives the impression that00:05:20.584
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we are at the end of the history.00:05:22.401
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This feeling has been present for a long time,00:05:24.003
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since the beginning of the 1990s.00:05:25.990
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There is a tendency appearing in contemporary art00:05:27.376
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looking for the ways how to think00:05:30.677
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about the future again and all the works00:05:33.222
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presented at the exhibition offer this attitude.00:05:37.367

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