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
Inge Kosková / Flow
-
Fait Gallery MEM, Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno
Curators: Marie Štindlová a Lenka Vítková
Opening: 23. 2. 2022, 7 pm
Drawings,
natural as the smoke from the smouldering end of a burning stick.
Inge Kosková's drawings are characterised by subtlety and sensitive precision. With extraordinary virtuosity, she touches on ephemeral subjects such as rhythm and breath, records landscapes and music, and writes letters in non-existent scripts. The Flow exhibition showcases a more vigorous form of her drawings which manifest that even subtlety can be firm and powerful.
Inge Kosková lives in Olomouc
drawing
and breathing
her drawings have the most beautiful breaks
her drawings feature Czech forests and meadows, crushed grass by a pond
her drawings with mantras are happy wishes for the world
her drawings are her breath and perhaps also her spirit (of a kind jester)
Inge Kosková draws on her own, even though we can say that she belongs somewhere
Inge has been compared to Olga Karlíková who produced drawings as light as the feathers of birds whose sounds guided her hand
Inge has been compared to Václav Stratil, the old trickster
Inge has been compared to a few others (the circle of artists of the Olomouc drawing, as they are called)
Inge was often interpreted by Jiří Valoch when he used to stomp around at exhibition openings in pointy shoes
Inge's work is concentrated and balanced. She slowly cultivates what she has, and she has lots.
Inge sometimes draws as if she were writing letters
Inge sometimes draws
Inge Kosková is often associated with the circle of artists of the Olomouc drawing. However, her work has always been somewhat solitary. It was and is based on honest contemplation and the distillation of phenomena to the core. In the beginning, she created imaginative works referring to surrealism, gradually moving through figurative motifs with existential overtones to records of landscapes and a search for the order of nature in general. Over time, her drawing expression lost the narrative and verbal content in favour of various phenomena that are difficult to convey in words. Their common denominator is breath, rhythm, a break. The drawing expression is reduced to a simple black line and well-organised work with large white areas of paper. In her works inspired by nature, a similarity to script emerges, and this motif is developed in drawings inspired by the structure of letters and the laws of writing. This experience is further reflected in the works created to music. Another kind of record involves works recording bodily sensations and a series of drawings with mantras in which the artist covered the paper with concentrated drawings related to a circle while repeating a particular mantra. The selection of works for the MEM gallery is based on recent records of music, supplemented by several drawings with mantras and a large-scale drawing on the front wall.
When I look at Inge Kosková's delicate drawings, it is as if I was looking at materialized gestures, as if I was looking at a variant of a music score for the dance that Inge performed in her tree-shaded flat while listening to Janáček. Listening to music appears to be an excuse to allow her lifelong experience of music, rhythm, landscape, body and breath to be put on paper. The long drawing on the front wall originated in the gallery. We observed how ideas and movements were conserved in lines making up a stream that ran around the gallery whenever someone allowed it through their gaze.
Even small drawings after Janáček and Medek flow with the spontaneity and power of a river stream. It meanders and intensifies in robust drawings with mantras - concentrated records of meditation exercises produced in synchronicity with the artist's breath. A few precisely laid black lines on white sheets of paper in a white gallery.
Text: Marie Štindlová
