INI Gallery on Artyčok

INI Gallery is an independent platform operating in the sphere of contemporary art. Our work is defined through an ongoing search for non-traditional forms of both presentation and support of the most current art forms. Our SPACE resembles rather a studio than a classical gallery. The program consists in actions of artists and theoreticians, which have a processual character and happen either before the completion and final presentation of an artwork, or alongside the author’s exhibition activity. Artists or curators are invited to confront their current intentions with the public, involve inspiring guests and transform the SPACE into anything from a workshop to a study room, office or even a kitchen.

INI Gallery is the partner project of the educational initiative UMA: You Make Art and a co-organizer of The Věra Jirousová Award for emerging and established art critics. Through our projects, we address the process of art making, its critical reflection and mediation to a wider public. We aim to be an open initiative mapping current happening on the local art scene, but at the same time keep expanding our operation in terms of geography, disciplines as well as diversity of the participating public.

INI Gallery also explores alternative approaches towards the possibilities of financing a non-profit project. Besides grant support, which is the major source of our financing, we contribute to our activities through revenues gained from selling and renting works by emerging and mid-career artists. We choose the works based on meaningful criteria derived from our orientation within both local and international art scenes, instead of treating a work of art as a mere commodity. We cooperate with artists we believe in, with those who actively exhibit and develop professionally. We therefore also support them in this important, yet uneasy career and expand the awareness of their works to contexts, which aren’t traditionally associated with contemporary art.

The Ini project was founded in 2011 as a civic association00:00:16.012
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and from the very start it involved the UMA: you make art project,00:00:20.772
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an educational project that contextualizes and presents00:00:28.059
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contemporary art and the alternative scene to the public,00:00:33.197
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and then in the following years it was joined by two other projects,00:00:37.456
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one being the Věra Jirousová award for starting and established critics of visual art,00:00:46.737
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which itself is a wider project with an accompanying programme and its own strategy,00:00:53.754
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and a studio space rather than a gallery space where we are sitting right now,00:00:59.867
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and these three projects have their own goals00:01:08.272
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but in some ways compliment each other.00:01:13.172
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The actual space was opened in 201300:01:25.871
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with a project by Aleš Čermák named Notes for women,00:01:32.427
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and since this first project in this space we have been trying to think00:01:36.286
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about a more processual side of the artistic operation,00:01:43.882
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and because this space here in Orco in Bubenská00:01:47.325
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is a studio, not a gallery, to use it in such way.00:01:52.166
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Most of the time it works as a small, two months long residency00:02:01.008
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and during this time the artist can use this space00:02:07.939
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and most of the time three or four meetings take place00:02:11.881
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during which something is prepared.00:02:14.955
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It could be a publication, a film or even some experimental formats00:02:17.653
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ranging from performative lectures and pop up exhibitions, installations00:02:23.757
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to workshops and more participative events,00:02:29.910
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and for us it is not only the actual preparation that is important00:02:36.489
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but also the effect of what follows, what it brings,00:02:41.196
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because a number of the artists used the space to prepare a project that followed later,00:02:46.352
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for example Roman Štětina cut here his movie00:02:53.357
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presented in the final of the Jindřich Chalupecký award,00:02:56.765
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and while cutting this he actually let us peek00:03:00.873
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into the way he works, thinks,00:03:07.765
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and this way he divided the project into some sort of phases.00:03:11.229
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Václav Magid did performative lectures here00:03:46.346
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that should lead to a catalogue or other publications.00:03:49.963
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Jiří Skála used the space in cooperation with Tomáš Uhnák00:03:59.169
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for a research on the topic of precarised society or social classes00:04:05.165
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and leisure time in the current economical and political situation00:04:12.444
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and at the end they presented the outcome00:04:18.289
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and at the same time it can be a start of further research in this field,00:04:21.306
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so it is not only to actually provide space for creation of these things that is important to us00:04:27.085
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but we would also ideally like to map it further,00:04:33.457
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see how they continue and what their outcome is somewhere else.00:04:36.053
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All these three projects are run by Anežka and me00:04:41.844
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but we also collaborate with Klára Adamcová,00:04:46.294
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the co-founder of INI who contributes to the projects as well.00:04:49.829
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Anežka mostly takes care of the award and UMA,00:04:54.536
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and I take care of the space, the gallery part,00:05:01.243
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but we are basically a team that takes cares of all the projects,00:05:08.272
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but as for the Věra Jirousová award,00:05:13.000
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it is very important for us to invite a wider artistic and even non-artistic world.00:05:15.777
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Thanks to the jury not only for coming here00:05:23.922
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but also for making the decision,00:05:28.128
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thank you all so much for coming to the ceremony of the second edition00:05:29.835
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of the Věra Jirousová award, the award for young and established art critics.00:05:37.971
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The Věra Jirousová award was conceived as firstly the actual competition for the younger category,00:05:41.470
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that people apply to themselves and send one particular text,00:05:49.482
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and the older category, the established one,00:05:54.826
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where the people are nominated for their activities00:05:58.585
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and the winner is selected in both cases by a jury00:06:03.632
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consisting of both artists and critics.00:06:06.856
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But also, because the younger category is also involved,00:06:10.191
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it was also defined since the very beginning that waking up of the field00:06:14.587
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will not happen on its own and just through the award,00:06:19.586
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that it is interesting to also organize workshops,00:06:21.676
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discussions, panel discussions about a certain topic,00:06:25.460
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which again very often takes place here at Ini.00:06:31.555
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Because the main thing we should talk about are fields that are somehow connected...00:06:37.908
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One of the exhibitions presented another of our projects called UMA: you make art00:06:43.335
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which focuses on mediating contemporary art,00:06:50.452
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and currently we work mainly on audioguides under the name of UMA art guide00:06:55.456
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that we record regularly on the occasion of art openings for every exhibition00:07:03.245
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at smaller independent galleries in Prague, Brno and Ustí nad Labem at the moment.00:07:10.062
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and we are slowly building an archive of these interviews00:07:17.321
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with artists and curators of the exhibitions,00:07:21.773
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but at the same time we always try to pose questions00:07:23.864
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that could be interesting even for someone00:07:27.474
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who does not really know the context of the artist’s work00:07:31.459
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and these audioguides could help him understand contemporary art.00:07:35.501
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The Agent exhibition at Fotograf gallery00:07:45.158
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is a result of collaboration of four UMPRUM students.00:07:47.775
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Eva Rybářová, Adam Havelka a Matěj Pavlík study at Photography00:07:50.087
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and Jan Kovaříček studies at School of Architecture III.00:07:54.086
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Together they answer questions about their individual roles at the exhibition00:07:57.384
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or connection between architecture and video.00:08:02.552
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UMA was the first of the projects00:08:05.322
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and it was based on an informal way of education00:08:08.886
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or some alternative approach to communicating of contemporary art00:08:12.514
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and although the other two projects also have their own goals,00:08:19.077
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I believe it is all about creating a space for informal meetings, some dialogue,00:08:23.198
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and even though within UMA and the audioguides it is mediated virtually,00:08:30.047
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it is still talking about art,00:08:37.354
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in this space the most important part is the moment of meeting,00:08:42.902
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an opportunity to share something that is maybe not even finished yet,00:08:49.185
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and the award also works very much like this,00:08:52.677
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although this year we organized quite a big conference in collaboration with AVU,00:08:56.384
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it was still based on our informal meetings and discussions00:09:02.062
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that took place over the course of the previous two years,00:09:06.864
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it was a bit more official format but still based on these principles.00:09:09.325
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Our aim is to conceive the yearly programme00:09:24.502
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so that the two months long phases00:09:29.255
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cover an interesting scale of approaches and artists,00:09:32.507
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on of the slots we try to provide for some newcomer,00:09:38.308
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since this year one of the slots is for a theorist,00:09:42.548
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for us it is not necessary for them to be artists,00:09:48.346
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we started to work more with duos, guests,00:09:51.309
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the actual person invites other people into the whole phase or just part of it,00:09:54.571
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and ideally someone from the more established scene,00:10:10.845
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one project on the occasion the Věra Jirousová award00:10:16.395
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and starting from next year we would like to have someone from abroad00:10:18.715
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or at least partially linked to other residencies in Prague,00:10:25.334
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people who work between the scenes00:10:29.358
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and ideally present foreign artists within this format, too.00:10:33.392
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We have this small space but at the same time00:10:48.558
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a lot of the projects take place in other spaces00:10:50.946
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or are somehow linked to them,00:10:55.003
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and it is a long term effort to support things and this search,00:10:59.957
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but also ideally not to aim it inside for the art scene00:11:07.512
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but try to work with different communities through the guests,00:11:13.220
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maybe not necessarily try to address the widest public00:11:19.562
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which I am not sure this project is aimed at or interesting for,00:11:23.469
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but through personal circles of people around our guests00:11:28.786
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who do not necessarily have to be part of the art scene00:11:35.441
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to widen this awareness and to move these circles00:11:40.575
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further and further, maybe even to different fields.00:11:50.319

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