Subtropical climate

The new project by Pavel Příkaský (1985) is closely related to the original use of the space of the Entrance gallery which used to be a glass-house belonging to the Břevnov monastery. It monitors and sets into context its genius loci with its “own weather” which enabled impossible things to happen in the surrounding inhospitable conditions – such as growing citrus fruits – and it also enabled a physical experience of “ a different situation” based on a real change of fragrances, humidity of the air, temperature and visuality.
Příkaský is mainly attracted by the emotional character of the controlled transformation of everyday reality into a simulation of an ideal “heavenly“ state and by the actual media that lead to it. The visual inspiration is freely connected to the former function of the building. With the help of his artefacts he retroactively models the space of the gallery into an exhibition which disposes of the same character as the “magical” inner space of the glass-house. In other words, it has the capacity to create a unique environment, quite independent of its surroundings, where common rules are not held and on the contrary, nearly everything is possible.
He uses different media and so the common territory is shared by an object, video, sound installation and naturally, most of all paintings which still show symptoms of photographic material. The collection of canvases – typical of the artist – creates a specific visual vocabulary: detached visual references, fragments of actions, objects and tools creating together a non-verbal collection open to be freely sorted. Moreover, the rendition of the painting is often on the verge of visibility, with no foreground and background, nevertheless, it informs us about the depicted objects through real illusiveness. The individual components merge and blend but sometimes a “different” logic comes to light. The hierarchy of the usual layering is disturbed and the sum of individual layers creates a new image which perhaps expresses at least a little bit the contemporary feeling of sophisticated technicalness clearly touched by primitivism.

Radek Wohlmuth