JAN PFEIFFER
Jan Pfeiffer studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. As well exhibiting his own work, which has been shown in Europe, Asia and America, he has run Prague’s Gallery Pavilion since 2007. He uses various media, working with the principles of observation and research. His themes are the search for a space of one’s own in a certain structure, and the influence of totalitarian and post-totalitarian powers on everyday life.
- I´ve wanted to say that the driving in a car was always a great joy for me00:00:27.085
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- because one moves and it accelerates his thinking as well.00:00:33.336
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- Some things start to have sense.00:00:38.211
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- Sometimes you can´t see anything.00:00:43.228
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- I like driving because00:00:49.237
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- it helps me to think better.00:00:50.976
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- I am interested in things that create towns, and00:00:53.800
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- how towns influence people who live in.00:01:00.217
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- From the towns you can read how the people live.00:01:02.957
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- I am interested in extreme situations in which people have to live.00:01:08.421
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- I mean some Eastern or totalitarian countries,00:01:12.469
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- because there may appear things that are normally hidden.00:01:20.565
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- I spent one year at Jaroslav Róna´s studio.00:01:24.010
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- He works very much with mass and reality.00:01:30.014
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- It was very intensive.00:01:36.016
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- Next year I studied at Jiří Příhoda.00:01:37.755
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- He opened everything for me.00:01:42.002
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- He showed me that00:01:48.403
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- I could work with everything, not only with the clay.00:01:50.821
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- He taught me that it is about the idea one wants to express,00:01:55.311
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- not about the medium one would choose.00:01:59.589
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- This was fundamental.00:02:02.363
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- To find the idea and to understand it is the most important.00:02:06.425
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- Hi, viva Slovakia and the Czech Republic!00:02:15.148
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- Love will win.00:02:22.568
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- I would like to show you shortcuts.00:02:26.497
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- We can go this way.00:02:29.771
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- I was strolling in streets,00:02:38.900
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- observing the shortcuts in the lawns.00:02:42.309
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- I thought it was interesting people created their own paths.00:02:46.755
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- Then I watched it in the Google maps.00:02:50.049
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- I realized that it created nice ornaments in the countryside.00:02:53.075
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- In fact, we can speak about people´s drawings.00:02:56.097
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- I started to observe it more, mainly by the satellite map.00:02:58.790
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- I realized that it is seen mainly in the Eastern countries.00:03:02.670
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- So I thought that although the state made it up wrongly,00:03:06.882
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- the people were able to find out their own way.00:03:10.709
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- I understood it even more metaphorically,00:03:14.704
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- that they are more capable to find their own ways.00:03:18.844
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- In several places in Prague, I counted the shortcuts.00:03:26.329
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- I tried to find out how many steps and how much time00:03:32.743
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- man saved by using those shortcuts.00:03:37.111
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- I put there signs where I informed people on those facts.00:03:40.428
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- The people´s reaction were different.00:03:43.743
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- Some enjoyed more using them,00:03:45.853
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- others decided to use official pavements again.00:03:48.050
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- I was looking at the things around me,00:04:08.573
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- and I was thinking about their lifespan.00:04:15.439
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- I took a picture from my window.00:04:19.523
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- Then I asked various experts how long they thought that00:04:23.723
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- the objects would exist.00:04:30.891
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- In fact, on the basis of the picture, and their knowledge,00:04:39.465
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- they predict the destiny of the taken objects.00:04:46.521
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- For example, one botanist told me that the tree was very ill,00:04:57.593
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- that it would last just 1 or 2 years.00:05:01.997
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- After some months, I am looking at the tree, and it is all red.00:05:07.422
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- So it is really ill.00:05:12.361
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- I wonder how long it will last.00:05:15.008
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- I made a very simple composition: a table, a chair and a plate.00:05:26.702
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- Each part is devided in two parts.00:05:34.075
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- Those parts are made in different countries.00:05:37.379
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- I found it in Ikea.00:05:41.260
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- I found boxes, one was from Malaysia, other from Romania.00:05:42.501
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- I cut them in halves and put the distinct parts together.00:05:45.549
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- My works means that there is only one shape00:05:47.248
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- and there are almost no differences.00:05:52.878
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- People make products according to the assignment.00:05:57.638
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- They suppress their tradition.00:06:00.202
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- In the end, when you put them together.00:06:02.967
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- You can´t recognize it.00:06:07.207
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- I like walking very much.00:06:23.606
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- Cause you can imagine the distance and the rhytm of my walk.00:06:27.266
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- Like this you can experience00:06:30.178
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- all the distances in the city.00:06:32.573
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- I like to observe people very much.00:06:43.750
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- For several months I went by bus to the airport.00:06:51.147
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- I enjoyed it cause there were people from different countries.00:06:55.183
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- I had an international feeling.00:06:58.834
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- In the end, I made a photo.00:07:01.799
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- There was a constellation of people00:07:04.076
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- that could be seen in Berlin or in New York.00:07:06.323
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- Then I went to Berlin.00:07:13.920
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- I looked for a similar situation.00:07:16.849
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- I found a similar street.00:07:19.893
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- I waited for the similar constellation of people.00:07:23.474
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- Then I asked my sister to do it in New York.00:07:36.276
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- I was very surprised how the places are similar, but at the same00:07:42.232
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- time there are differences.00:07:49.557
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- For example, here in Prague, the foreigners you can see in the picture00:08:00.420
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- are just visiting Prague.00:08:03.985
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- Here, the multiculturality is only temporary.00:08:07.919
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- However, in New York, these people live together.00:08:13.996
Jane na 99, 9 percenta je jasne , ze AFTER the FIRST je pc kolaz, preco tvrdis ze je to realna fotka (real je len Praha) ? nerozumiem tomu…
Lebo by to stratilo kontext?!
Ale v pripade, ze to je real, je to sexy praca!