Waiting for the Final Present in Absence
The works of Slovak artist Martin Vongrej (1986) are sketches and three-dimensional visualizations of organic relationships between reality, perception, human consciousness, internal and external reality, the visible and the hidden. Last year Vongrej was shortlisted for the Oskár Čepan Award; in 2010 he participated in Manifesta 8, the European biennial of contemporary art. His first solo exhibition in the Czech Republic took place several months ago at the Moravian Gallery in Brno.
- "The words of author invisible when in front of his artwork.00:00:10.816
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- Presence of author, presence of being as the meaning of the artwork.00:00:15.017
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- Medium of psyche. Waiting for the final presence in absence.00:00:19.289
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- X, cross, identification, negation,00:00:23.652
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- self-portrait, face, figure,00:00:27.906
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- visible presentation, presentation of perspective.00:00:32.141
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- Centre - the only central point carries the awareness00:00:37.335
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- of the whole of knowledge.00:00:41.566
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- The work is not as visible from one side as from the other.00:00:45.963
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- Every central point carries the awareness of the whole of knowledge.00:00:50.166
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- Micro = macro. Micro, centre, X, macro.00:00:54.547
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- Transparent essence of water whereof everything grows.00:00:58.788
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- Transparent gaps of junctures.00:01:02.920
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- One becomes two, two become three,00:01:07.186
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- and the third becomes one as the fourth one."00:01:11.527
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- I have written down this symbol on the border between sleep00:01:15.659
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- and awakedness at the airport in Lima, where I have been trying00:01:20.028
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- more or less a polyphasic sleep. I wanted to surround myself00:01:24.157
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- completely with unconsciousness. That means I wanted to sleep00:01:28.458
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- four times within 24 hours following thus the X shape00:01:32.816
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- I have sketched there and as if surround myself00:01:37.118
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- with unconsciousness, sleep and the stuff psyche reaches there00:01:41.238
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- - what it feeds on when sleeping.00:01:48.590
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- This whole room is closed from the other side00:01:52.704
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- as if with a repeated image00:01:57.069
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- - it is a general depiction of the process of individuation00:02:01.248
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- - conjoining the consciousness and unconsciousness.00:02:05.458
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- It's a vision I have printed,00:02:09.597
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- crumpled and printed again,00:02:13.683
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- where the crumpling part - taking up of an actual vision00:02:18.049
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- creates a tension between chance and purpose00:02:22.427
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- of that I can hold entirely in my hand,00:02:26.709
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- as if to grab hold of it, and at the same time00:02:30.912
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- not to have control over what I end up making.00:02:35.240
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- The next part of the show is as if fragmentary or fractal00:02:39.285
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- hanging of the individual, particular things00:02:43.507
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- in the X shaped horizontal projection.00:02:47.825
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- Things that themselves refer once again to the X,00:02:51.977
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- to the centre and to the medium I work with00:02:56.342
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- as if by transcending the centre,00:03:00.608
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- the limits of visuality00:03:04.873
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- and options of surpassing it.00:03:09.058
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- "Medium, centre, X, cross, a view into its centre00:03:17.406
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- is a view outwards as well.00:03:21.777
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- Awareness of presentation and observation testifies.00:03:25.894
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- Chance = chance. Purpose = purpose.00:03:30.021
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- Yves Klein, Chelsea Hotel Manifesto.00:03:35.725
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- Invisible constellation of northern hemisphere - Southern Cross.00:03:40.142
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- Martin Heidegger: «The sight which is related primarily00:03:44.572
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- and on the whole to existence we call 'transparency'.»00:03:48.676
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- Albert Einstein: «Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.»00:03:52.823
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- To hold an actual view in hand,00:04:01.740
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- crumpling, tension between chance and the purpose of composition00:04:05.860
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- firmly held in hand. Gap, transparency, absence.00:04:10.177
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- Ivan Štrpka: «The whole is present but escaping.»00:04:15.212
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- It means that it persists.00:04:19.489
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- Making present, the place itself, the visible, visible space,00:04:23.604
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- its presentation, the thinkable, thinkable space.00:04:27.974
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- Making present,00:04:32.212
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- achieving equivalence between the visible and the thinkable.00:04:36.010
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- Uninscribability - potency of processuality. Uninscribability - potency of processuality.00:04:40.312
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- Purpose - to follow the resisting capacity of the presentation.00:04:44.458
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- Here, now."00:04:48.837