ONDŘEJ BASJUK / THE CULT EXHIBITION

The events that are present in Tomáš Bárta's paintings take place between two spaces and the partition between them. These pictures inevitably set a "backward course" through the history of European painting, all the way back to Leon Battista Alberti’s reflections on the construction of pictorial space which he incorporated into his seminal work De pictura (1435). However, instead of a well-organised renaissance arrangement, Bárta offers us more ambiguous spatial relations and a spectral illusion of the objects inhabiting his paintings, as if architecture produced its own ghosts.

ONDŘEJ BASJUK / THE CULT EXHIBITION

15.01.2014 - 05.03.2014

Fait Gallery PREVIEW
Dominican Square 10, Brno
15/1 – 5/3/2014
Opening: 14/1/2014 at 6pm
Curator: Martin Nytra

Basjuk’s game with meanings, character of the depiction and formal methods is based on his own experience, but also on a thorough investigation and is greatly influenced by the aesthetics coming from the illustrations in adventure literature, boys novels and travel books, as well as by the legacy and the morphology of modernism and
the early avant-garde, which are for contemporary art practise appealing and actual again for many reasons. These appropriations, which he approaches consciously and carefully, are mixed with reality and collector items often of East Asian and Buddhist origin. By this a certain aesthetic model is created, which evokes topics that are both esoteric and of an occult nature as well as displaying the idea of an interest in the exotic and so called primitive cultures, which is typical for modern western society. These cultures represent the ideal of the escape and insight into the nature of things, as well as just contemporary fashion. However, as the name of the exhibition, as well
as the work of Ondřej Basjuk, suggest, the project of romantic return or escape is an ideal, it’s perception constantly oscillates between the importance, sincere need, pathos, facileness and sarcastic irony that mocks it’s own lack of freedom, therefore destroying all the myths which arose from the desire of the spirit. It can easily happen that only grimace is created by this, as contemporary trends and affectiation, which depends on our assessment of the importance of autonomy, relation to objectivity, or the definition of true nature.

Martin Nytra

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