Take a Deep Breath

For Rudolf Samohejl, it is important not to think of an exhibition as a presentation of artifacts, but as the construction of a "situation." Its "actors" are the gallery space, the elements placed within it, but also the visitors, who at the specific moment of their visit become its feeling and thinking extensions. Perhaps this is why the content of Samohejl's exhibitions is not easily conveyed: it requires physical and mental engagement, responding to hints, discovering patterns contained within them, but at the same time internally accepting the idea that the whole system cannot be fully comprehended, mastered, or exhausted. Thanks to this, the exhibition can perhaps become a kind of case study of the problem we feel after we allow reality to reveal itself to us in all its layers and complexity.

Take a Deep Breath encompasses the connections between nature and civilization, the physical and the virtual, and the organic and the inorganic. It features motifs of fossilization and sedimentation, which Samohejl uses as sculptural metaphors for the transition from one state to another. It is precisely these transitional states and transformational processes that can be considered one of the most important axes around which the author revolved when conceiving this exhibition. In the notes he made during the preparation of the exhibition, there is also a reflection on the fact that after times of fluidity, we are entering a time of solidification. Take a deep breath as if both of these times were present, when a grid of a new (?) reality seems to be crystallizing within the flow of information.

The exhibition did not come about in a vacuum. We worked on it at a time when the whole world was crippled by a pandemic, which is why Samohejl wondered whether our sensibilities would remain changed after it subsided. Will the much-discussed "return to normal" be possible and desirable? Will our unusual experience affect the way we view reality and where we focus our desires? What "zeitgeist" will emerge from the next stage of the fusion of man, nature, and machines? Are we able to glimpse what awaits us, and is it good to take a deep breath before doing so? What and how can an artist capture a stage when we have more questions than answers?

Jiří Ptáček

Rudolf Samohejl (*1987) comes from České Budějovice. After graduating from the St. Agnes of Bohemia Secondary School of Applied Arts in Český Krumlov, he studied at the Sculpture Studio at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague from 2007 to 2014. He has held solo exhibitions at Galerie Jelení (Prague, 2012), Galerie V jámě (Ostrava, 2014), Galerie Nevan Contempo (Prague, 2017), Galerie OFF/FORMAT (Brno, 2018), and Galerie SVIT (with Markus Proschek, Prague, 2019). In 2013, he was a finalist for the Essl Award, and two years later he won the Dutch Jan Naaijkens Prize. In 2015, he organized a sculpture workshop for children, which was held by Galerie Měsíc ve dne as part of the Gallery Night program. Among the collective exhibitions in the Czech Republic and abroad, his participation in the exhibition held as part of the 13th Havana Biennial (2019) and in the Les Parallèles du Sud program at Manifesta 13 in Marseille (2020) occupy a special place. In southern Bohemia, we encountered his work at the EXPO Týn 2020 collective exhibition at the Municipal Gallery in Týn nad Vltavou. Since 2015, Samohejl has lived mainly in Brussels.