Katarína Hládeková a Jiří Kovanda / SIAMESE UNCLE & MONTAGE

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

Katarína Hládeková a Jiří Kovanda / SIAMESE UNCLE & MONTAGE

03.10.2015 - 19.11.2015

Fait Gallery & Fait Gallery MEM
Božetěchova 1, Brno
3. 10. - 19. 11. 2015
Opening: 1. 10. 2015 at 7pm

Curator of exhibition Siamese uncle: Pavel Vančát

Curator of exhibition Montage: Marika Kupková

Technical support: Ivan Svoboda

Photographer: Marek Mičánek

Katarína Hládeková and Jiří Kovanda
SIAMESE UNCLE & MONTAGE

The unusual format of the exhibitions of the two authors Katarína Hládeková (1984) and Jiří Kovanda (1953), having been prepared in parallel to each other by two curators and in two connected Fait Gallery areas intentionally reflects the possibility of their cooperation in different ways. Whilst being a classically approached exhibition the Siamese Uncle by the curator Pavel Vančát is of an expected retrospective nature disturbed by the mutual paraphrasing created by their existing art works making the identity of the artists mingle and almost merge. The new joint project of the second exhibition Montage, in cooperation with Marika Kupková, does, to the contrary, clearly display the separate roles of the authors and their mutual intersection is defined by the specific concept of video installations.

Denisa Kujelová, Head Curator of the Fait Gallery

Siamese Uncle

Katarína Hládeková and Jiří Kovanda are connected not only by Hládeková’s PhD studies in Ústí nad Labem, but also by a sense of tranquil atmosphere and frequent emphasis on unexpectedly transformed detail. But while the very existence of Kovanda’s art works is always a bit of an unpredictable and uncertain nature, Hládeková is a storytelling perfectionist; while Kovanda is a grandmaster of improvisation, Hládeková, on the other side, constructs whole microuniverses. So how to introduce art works by artists of different generations and also with such different characteristics, connected rather by mutual sympathy and in two connnected exhibitions at once?

Their joint exhibition in Brno takes up a series of Kovanda’s various collaborations with other artists in a radical way: both artists completely give up their solitude and indeed the exclusive authorship of their artworks and allow them to coalesce, but also be seen in stark contrast to one another. The new and old works by both artists do not only communicate together here, but also merge and morph into collective new formations, postscripts and mutual comments. Some of them are a result of a joint debate, others were a unique intervention by one of the authors, and some were created during an improvisation in the gallery space (and some of them were borrowed from Kovanda’s biggest collector, Richard Adam). So Kovanda lets the curator’s car crash into Hládeková’s birthplace, Hládeková counters with a pack of hankerchiefs and a line of cactuses. Inspirations, allusions, contexts and after all the whole exhibiton start to move.

All of this allows us to see the works of both authors through the eyes of only one of them, through the prism of their own method, point of view and their opinion about the world. As if we among their art pieces happen to be again and again in that moment, when the approaching magnets start to repel or attract. This creates a strange Siamese duet of the two artists (and through a wall of two curators), a fun nonverbal dialogue between two generations about different bases, mutual influences and pure joy of the game and surprise, but also a small study about the principles of contemporary art and its elasticity.

Pavel Vančát, RailJet W. A. Mozart, 22. 9. 2015

Montage

The video by Katarína Hládeková and Jiří Kovanda, that was created specially for the exhibition, is untitled. That’s why this text is a short reflection of its possible names that could be found for it on the literal level. So. It could be called The Ruins because Jiří Kovanda works with a largely divided photo of a model created by Katarína Hládeková according to the famous painting The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel (1824), which was painted by Louis Daguerre according to his own dioramas. The Ruins can symbolize the final disintegration of the integrity of the original picture, as well as the partial remains of many media forms that are present between Daguerre‘s diorama and the exhibited video.

It could be called Holyrood Chapel as per the place that Daguerre supposedly never visited and whose reconstruction refers to repeatedly mediated pictures which actually do not relate to the reality at all. And that means as to the reality of the Holyrood chapel as well as the reality of its model produced by Katarína Hládeková. The emphasis on locality also points to the author's choice of the attractive sight worthy of postcards from trips or jigsaw puzzle (and once even dioramas).

In accordance with the name of the exhibition the video could be also called the Montage, as it is based upon the variation of the set of constant elements. What is important, however, Kovanda‘s attempts are spontaneous and uncorrected. In the video there are purposefully represented all variants that Jiří Kovanda had tried without selecting the "better" ones or adjusting their order. The purpose was not to make a movie, based on a prepared scenario, but to record the progress of thinking of a performer when handling a source, that he had not selected himself. So the video could be called the Test which was carried out by Katarína Hládeková on Jiří Kovanda and which simultaneously took place at the level of a unique joint work of artists based on the challenge set by the curator. (As well as, Learning or Mastering, which already brings us to the relationship between the two authors on the level of the former teacher and his student.)

It could be also called Patience from the famous card game played by a single player and which has an infinite number of variations. The subject attracting the audience might be the predictability as well as the surprise factor of his acts. Nota Bene, when playing with the cards, let’s say of a familiar cultural and historical nature.

Marika Kupková

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