Reports

Aleš Čermák Jiří Skála

A group of people are standing in the backyard of a block of flats. Some of them are talking to each other, others are standing alone, sipping slowly red or white wine from plastic cups. Others are walking into or out of the building at irregular intervals. Behind the main entrance of the house there is an entrance into an exhibition space, so called gallery. The rooms are not furnished. There is nothing, except the visitors. Just white walls and grey floor. Everyone knows the others and they are on first name terms. They utter a few words now and then to the others. Nothing serious, just attempts to start a conversation. An elderly man whose behaviour and appearance do not correspond with the others appears in the backyard. However, he starts a conversation with several members of the group. The people listen to him patiently and then they refer him to the woman and the man standing nearby. They are the keepers of the gallery – Gabina Kotlikova and Dominik Lang. The man comes to them and repeats the sentences he had said before. Gabina or Dominik listen to him and then invite him to the gallery space. The man runs nervously through the rooms as if he were looking for something. After that he starts examining the whole space, which takes him a while. The last he does is open the door in the back right corner of the first room. It hides a small space with a toilet and the facilities of the gallery. The man enters and starts feeling all its walls in detail. Then he asks one more question. The people asked just shake their heads in disagreement. The man hesitates for a while if to leave, and at last he resolves and starts speaking again. His diction and gestures gradually addresses all the people in the gallery. He recites incomprehensible statements and sentences and then hangs a piece of A4 paper printed with text on the gallery wall. In the end, he is leaving.

artistsAleš Čermák, Jiří Skála
curatorsDominik Lang, Gabriela Kotiková
placeGalerie Jelení
tags
castAleš Čermák, Jiří Skála, Martin Frič
cameraJan Vidlička
soundJan Vidlička
editingJan Vidlička
interviewJan Vidlička
translationZuzana Frantíková
categoryReports
published2. 4. 2013
languageČesky / English
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Aleš Čermák Jiří Skála
Conceptual artist, performer, and writer Milan Kozelka (1948‒2014) left an indelible mark on Czech art, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. He devoted himself to poetry from the 1960s onwards, and his poems are now considered part of the Czech response to American Beat literature. At the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, he turned his attention to action art.