Lukas Thaler / THE PROPELLER

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

Lukas Thaler / THE PROPELLER

23.05.2013 - 12.09.2013

Fait Gallery MEM
Božetěchova Street 1 (enstrance from Metodějova Street), Brno
23/5 – 12/9/2013
Opening: 23/5/2013 at 7pm
Curator: Martin Nytra

Lukas Thaler's exhibition titled The Propeller / Vrtule specifically refers to a scene from Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up, where due to a subjective interpretation the propeller becomes an object of quite a different function. This interpretation is redefining the object as an object of an aesthetic and ritual nature. The author borrowed this situation as a pattern to explain the method of his own work, for which it is significant, in addition to the interest in the subject and it’s status (as mentioned before), also conceptual reflection of a painting and a picture as a media and minimalist elliptic form that specifically incorporates and follows the visual characteristic of prefabricated materials creating an impression of rather a sophisticated art object.

In his installations Thaler treats the picture as an unstable concept, in which the painting loses its depicting qualities, and on the other hand, some subjects acquire certain characteristics of the image. By this he tries to deconstruct the relationships of objects to their symbolism and free the process of painting from its dependence on the concepts of visual representations and illusion of reality. The transcendental engagement of the subject into a situation within the frame of painting is replaced by a simple perception of shapes, volumes, textures and colors. The reason for this approach is not only the attention paid to the relationship between the sign and its meaning (which is not a valid permanent reality for the subject), but also the effort to prepare a situation in which the perception of the audience takes place on a purely emotional level.

The actual experience, purified from a symbolic reading, allows to create independent space to play with form and basic means of painting in relation to the classical requirements of abstract painting. However, the scale and resources which the author uses, rather declass the iconic sovereignty and balance the position of the audience. The tendency of ourselves, who are able to see and feel, is to decipher and define this experience, which establishes the hegemony of sign and intellect again. Efforts to forget the learned language and return into a “prenatal stage” of experiencing the reality in a pure, sensual level become a virtually utopian dream. We return back to the propeller.

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