DAVID BÖHM AND JIŘÍ FRANTA: NEARLY NOTHING IS COMPLETE
‘Video and Photography for Drawing for Performance for Drawing’ sounds as if the artists David Böhm and Jiří Franta are searching for the beginning of a mantra. Indeed they are both ‘draw-ers’ and the final product of their project can be said to be drawings.
But what from the complex process of creation is the essence of their work: the process itself, performance, drawing, or the performance of drawing? For the show at Karlín, this cycle could be simplified to ‘exhibition of drawing’.
Although artificial, the process of drawing is real, despite disproportionally long brushes set up by long water pipes, rods, a balloon with a brush controlled by its driver, a cast drawing with snow into snow from a pot, spatial drawing with a string and erasing with bike tires.
- The exhibition is entitled00:00:02.079
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- "Almost Nothing Is Complete".00:00:04.787
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- There are 6 video recordings of performances00:00:07.810
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- we worked on for about half a year,00:00:11.458
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- exploring the limits of drawing.00:00:14.126
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- Some performances are about working with people00:00:17.730
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- who have jobs, through which they try00:00:22.204
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- to redraw our drawings.00:00:25.733
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- It's less about their jobs00:00:28.708
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- than about the machines they use.00:00:31.554
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- The drawings are usually simple motives00:02:31.104
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- or symbols and, as Jirka has said,00:02:34.234
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- sometimes the result is not visible at all,00:02:37.353
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- as in the case of the balloon.00:02:41.223
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- For instance, this excavator00:02:43.830
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- was redrawing a simple person00:02:46.990
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- with an electronic arm for drawing.00:02:49.539
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- The machine is used to replace physical power00:02:53.048
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- but we wanted to use it00:02:58.099
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- for some delicate activity, that is drawing.00:03:02.659
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- There was also a performance00:03:06.244
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- entitled "Just Like Matisse".00:03:09.220
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- We used a 6 meter bar to draw00:03:12.123
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- Matisse drawing with a stick00:03:15.215
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- and tried to see the effect00:03:17.928
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- of the shaking rod on the result.00:03:20.720
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- His reason for doing it was totally different.00:03:23.686
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- The 6 meter rod was quite a complication00:03:27.742
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- so the result is more interesting for us.00:03:31.883
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- We were interested in the process00:03:35.183
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- of getting more interesting drawings.00:03:38.027
I must say I like it.