SELECTION FROM THE FAIT GALLERY COLLECTION I
23.10.2025 - 10.01.2026
Fait Gallery, Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno
Exhibition concept: Ondřej Kotrč
The first of two overview exhibitions assesses the collecting activities of the Fait Gallery, initiated by Igor Fait and systematically developed since 2012 in synergy with the chief curator Denisa Kujelová, who worked in the gallery until mid-2025.
Given the extensive nature of the collection which comprises over 1,000 items, and considering the multiple artistic approaches and the time span covered by the collection, which ranges from the pre-war avant-garde to contemporary art, it appeared natural to organise two consecutive shows.
In order to maintain a certain homogeneity in the exhibition, it was necessary to find a simple and universal key for selecting the artists and individual works. In most cases, this took the form of an abstract geometric-constructivist tendency which, with a few exceptions, involved pure minimalism, while in other cases it was softer abstraction with connotations of a reality-inspired starting point.
Part of the exhibition is devoted to the presentation of pre-war modernism, making up the core of the collection from the very beginning. It is the cubist tendency, evident in the works of Emil Filla and the more frequently represented Antonín Procházka, that forms a link with the mentioned geometric-abstract tendency which in many cases takes on a mathematical character in the works of artists active in the second half of the 20th century.
In connection with cubism, it is also necessary to mention that the exhibition includes several works related more to contemporary art which can be described as explicitly figurative, mediating a kind of neo-cubism and thus making an exception from the rule within the exhibition concept.
A confrontational aspect is supplied by the younger generation of artists fluidly incorporated into the exhibition. They function as a subtle refreshing and at the same time convey the message that the recycling of basic forms defined in the first half of the 20th century is still relevant, even though the artists' starting points are now quite different.
From the media perspective, the exhibition provides an overview of the segment of the collection that exclusively addresses traditional art forms such as painting, drawing, graphic art, objects, sculpture, assemblage, and various types of collage.
The overall aim of the exhibition is to present the part of the collection relating to the mentioned trends, to define and demonstrate formal and content-unifying elements among artists across the given time scope, and to set them in a mutual context.
Ondřej Kotrč
Markéta Magidová / TERTIUM NON DATUR
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Fait Gallery PREVIEW
Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno
15. 6. - 30. 7. 2016
Vernissage: 15. 6. 2016 at 7pm
Curator: Jiří Ptáček
Three years ago, a visual artist and art theorist Markéta Magidová held a solo exhibition Domestic dictionary in Brno Gallery Kabinet. She complemented a 3D installation by a printed dictionary interpretation of terms and phrases specially used only within her family. Interpersonal bonds within this basic social unit could have been viewed as a network emerging and confirming itself through language.
For Markéta Magidová the use of a wide range of artistic media is important. She, however uses spoken or written word, so regularly, that the exploration of these could be viewed as the significant focus of her work. It is the same case with the exhibition Tertium non datur. The installation part of the exhibition and the video are based on a single principle: the metaphorical use of the number 3. In the spatial installation created of objects and photographs there could be found traits that make the exhibition resemble as well as differentiate from the previously mentioned Domestic dictionary. As a similarity between the exhibitions you can see the efforts of the artist to bring together the fullest list of labels and names that, in this case, include the number three. The third eye, third hand, the tripod, the Third Reich ... Unlike the Domestic dictionary, however,this exhibition does not come with interpretation. It loosely lays one next to the other and leaves it upto us if we discover partial connections or the inability to create any justification for collecting these "third things" at one point. The consequence might be the impression that we are facing a somewhat obscure collection.
Magidová though monitors the role of language in shaping the thought structures and value systems. At the exhibition, called by the logical principle of allowing only two true statements, she draws the attention to "exclude" the third option. She focuses on the names that indicate redundancy, failure, a mistake, otherness, etc. She focuses on the deeply rooted binary schedule of human thought, within which case it is only considered to be "complete" and flawless. The author's intentions are yet political, at least as a discussion with the thought schemes, for which the deviation is considered a disadvantage without examination of its potential benefits. Exactly for this reason a part of the exhibition became a video in which the mime artist Petr Biel improvises movement of creations on three legs. It causes laughter or contempt within the audience. The question, however, is whether these two immediate emotional reactions are only two ways of rejecting that potential before it slowly starts to root.
T: Jiří Ptáček
