ONDŘEJ HOMOLA / ARANGE

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

ONDŘEJ HOMOLA / ARANGE

03.04.2013 - 25.05.2013

Fait Gallery PREVIEW
Dominican Square 10, Brno
3/4 - 25/5/2013
Opening: 2/4/2013 at 6pm
Curator: Martin Nytra

The installation by Ondřej Homola builds on illusory banality and dry humor based on semiotic play with the meanings of similar-sounding words „the arrangement“ and „orange“, creating a prima facie absurd and senseless situation. This relationship results from the emotions and associations that both expressions evoke. The feeling of absurdity is amplified at the idea of neatly composed pyramids of oranges in the greengrocers department, that is actually - in our cultural environment - better known from the movies and shopping during the holidays by the sea, makes this picture as a demonstration of superfluity almost ideal. At the same time it points to the interchangeability of subject and object of an art piece. The exhibition title The Arrangement also relates to this and it deliberately works with the phenomenon of the ideal of beauty by the way of depicting the appropriate ways of adjustment, presentation and construction or deconstruction of concepts. In our case, it refers in particular to modernity and a substantive man's relationship to the object, which attributes the high aesthetic quality, which consequently generates and multiplies by the characteristic way of life of the consumer society, and which thus acquires an existential nature. The individual exhibited artworks interpret the aesthetics and the art language of modernism in relation to the objectives and resources within the context of applied art and promotional art and thus refer generally to the avant-garde role in the transformation of societal values and perception of reality. In the process of deconstruction and construction therefore the means becomes the target. The physical figure breaks down into a 3D and mechanical model that supports the mold, devoid of its the symbolic function, but liberated and imbued with the spirit of the new beauty.

Go back