Michal Škoda / Interweaving
22.05.2024 - 27.07.2024
Fait Gallery, Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno
Curator: Silvia L. Čúzyová
Opening: 22nd May, 7 pm
Michal Škoda's representative exhibition entitled INTERWEAVING is not a retrospective but thematizes a constant creative dialogue with the past, present and the possible future of his work - a continuous intertwining of subjects, meanings, media and materials. It is also a continuation of a focused interaction with Places with Specific Qualities. Škoda consistently works with a reduced abstract form and realises his subjects – an interest in space and architecture, a place for the human, archiving of existence and everyday life - through a variety of techniques. Drawing is one of the main means of expression in his work, along with artist’s books, and in recent years his sculptural nature has re-emerged in objects that work, to some extent, with architectural morphology. While the large-scale drawings and objects are essential and highly abstracted works, their imaginary counterparts involve Škoda's diaries and so-called Records, where he maps his everyday life through immediate drawing and photographic records. It is literally an archive of the artist's existence where countless stimuli take place, even those seemingly different from what he represents.
Diaries and Records are two series from Škoda's rich output in the field of artist’s books developed since the 1990s. Diaries represent a more traditional form of hand-bound notebooks with classic pagination. Each exists in a single copy. They have a chronological character and are numbered according to the order of their creation. The extensive collection of diaries is based on original black and white photography with artistic interventions in various techniques. Photography appeared in Škoda's work in 1996 as part of his first book, Places. Over the following decades its form matured and evolved through a multitude of visualizations and photographic records. The textual component is absent in the diaries and it is not clear whether it is possible to "read" them in a linear way. However, they clearly show what interests the artist, what catches his eye and engages his mind. The diaries are the artist's private field of experimentation, a reservoir of inspiration and ideas. The images follow one by one as if from a dictionary of Škoda's perception: structures and grids, found architectural situations, details, accents, horizons and vistas - inconspicuous but formative moments of existence, subtle contemplative beauty. The artist's ability to generate image after image in flawless composition is fascinating. The positioning of images on the pages is highly important, and perforations appear as physical intersections into the world of the following pages.
Records, as Michal Škoda calls his mixed-media drawings on A4 paper, are primary messages in the simplest of ways, "continuous touches" - a dialogue with the everyday reality and the result of countless hours over a sheet of paper when concentrated work in the studio takes on meditative dimensions. Elementary visual units indicate the inner constellation of more complex images and reveal Škoda's creative process. For these records, the artist uses the techniques of drawing, pen drawing, painting and collage, adding pieces of time-relevant reality such as photographs, frottage, fragments of various printed materials, ground plans, etc. He still works with inscriptions (more precisely with words) and typographic compositions, albrot to a much lesser extent than in the past. The specific character of Records lies in the fact that the individual sheets are not bound, and can be selected and used to intervene in space, thus presenting a simple and at the same time eccentric form of an artist’s book. It was impossible to resist the distinctive character of the Fait Gallery in Brno and not to attempt a creative confrontation of a magnificent industrial space with A4 drawings and records. Hundreds of pieces of Records placed in succession, as they were created, make up a unique whole of an enormous picture and reflect Škoda's intense analysis of space and its potential, "space as a phenomenon and an infinite territory of subjects."
Anna Ročnová / Gerbera won't break
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Fait Gallery PREVIEW, Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno
Curator: Lenka Vítková
Opening: 22nd May, 7 pm
LV: I am fascinated by the strange calmness that emanates from your work, the absence of any hint of moralizing. How has working in a flower shop changed your art practice?
AR: It's not a closed process. I was learning the floristry craft and was surprised by how many things I knew from my art work. My things are often infused with what I'm experiencing, for example, I was preparing the exhibition Mown Gooseberry in my late grandmother's house just before it was renovated, the garden was also undergoing a change, so I turned the trees and shrubs that my grandmother liked into objects. It's the same with floristry, I apply florist methods, materials to art and see how it manifests.
LV: In your studio I was really impressed by your respect for everything you handle, including the crude oil that the florist mats are made of, or the dark liquids that prevent decay in floristry. How do you work? Can you describe the process, and what is its goal?
AR: I usually start by surrounding myself with materials. I bring various kinds of wood, leaves, fruits, now I also visit florist shops, skewers, wire, dry materials, etc into the studio, I also work with more traditional sculptural materials, plaster, clay, and I like to use fabric.
I fold, glue and group, fill, cut, melt, dye, sew, burn. I may use an object I made years ago and revive it in a new constellation. The subsequent installation is just as important as the creation of each object. In the installation I create what we often see in nature. I think atmospherically it's the details of the landscape, the forest, and I'm also interested in interfaces, places on the outskirts of the city where wilderness stretches into the city, the edges of pavements, bits of concrete lost amng grass and overgrown bushes in which a colour microtene bag is caught.
I refer to the process of my work as "extended nature". And that is the goal of my work. The result is a whole that looks natural, as if it came into existence and grew by itself, just like it happens in nature. When I exhibit outdoors, the viewer doesn't have to be sure whether they are looking at a work of art or a work of nature.
What I also enjoy about working with naturalia is their emotionality, the process of birth and decline, growth and decay, rotting, drying. All these processes on the surface co-create the emotionality that my objects subsequently exude. Emotion is an important clue for me. And I think it is ultimately emotions that determine what the objects will look like.
LV: You also mentioned the need to set a kind of tension that your objects really hold for me - they make me wonder, they're not easily interpreted. Would you like to say more about that?
AR: I think the tension you're talking about is between the parts that make up my objects. Sometimes I modify them by reinforcing the emotion I want the object to emit, for example, by employing used engine oil, permanganate, or burning. My objects are characterized by fragility, I am interested in destruction which I perceive, like it is in nature, as part of a cycle, not as something catastrophic. But I'm also interested in other situations, like water running down a rock, the depth of observation from larger wholes to the tiniest detail.
LV: Acknowledging the possibility of destruction - for me it is also the acceptance of life and its cycles. But the usual requirement placed on a work of art is that it should be as durable as possible. How much do you think about this, is it a challenge for you?
AR: Actually, I have never asked myself this question during my work. Many objects are very resistant. I tested this when I exhibited outdoors. Some of the objects are still in place today and are gradually growing into their surroundings. Others have not changed their appearance at all after six months of exposure to the elements, and continue to permeate my other installations.
Fragile objects can be adjusted in glass boxes, following the example of natural exhibits. However, when installing and creating objects, I have little interest in the issue of durability and do not emphasize it in my choice of materials.
LV: What obstacles do you have to overcome in your work? Or do the flow and joy prevail?
AR: I really enjoy exploring the possibilities of new connections, the strange energy that is present during the process. Sometimes I can't communicate with the material. Then it helps to take it apart and put it back together again, to be able to touch it and connect with it in some way. I become a part of it and that makes it whole.
Interview with Anna Ročňová (AR) on the exhibition Gerbera Won't Break was led by Lenka Vítková (LV).
