READY OR NOT, HERE I COME / SELECTION FROM THE FAIT GALLERY COLLECTION

The artists of the collective exhibition The Other Side of a Photograph share unusual visuality, the consistency of light and the concept of individual photographs that challenge conventions. Selected works by the tandem of Lukáš Jasanský and Martin Polák, Michal Kalhous, Alena Kotzmannová, Marie Kratochvílová and Markéta Othová, in dialogue with Jan Svoboda's personal approach to photography and Jiří Kovanda's subtle interventions, allow us to glimpse, through their shared sensitivity, the hidden reality of the world in unexpected detail.

The selection of analogue, mostly black-and-white photographs seemingly captures what almost all of us see. In many cases, banal and sometimes even unphotogenic situations, often emphasised in a deliberately unprofessional manner to the point of amateur photography, are sometimes embarrassing. However, the mundane in them opens up wide boundaries of beauty that we probably would not have thought of without their help. Susan Sontag descrines it in the chapter The Heroism of Vision: “No one has ever found ugliness through photography. But many have discovered beauty in this way. Except when the camera is used for documentation or as part of a social ritual, what makes people take photographs is a desire to find something beautiful..."[1]

All of the artists, like Jan Svoboda (1934-1990) from the late 1960s, have in various ways transcended the established principles and canons of photography and in their distinctive approach deliberately questioned its supposed message and formal perfection, expanding it with new possibilities of treatment and perception. "The things I do show no artistry. And I want them not to. I want them not to be pretty, to be as ordinary as possible, not to dazzle, not to shock, not to surprise...”[2] Just like Svoboda's work, the works of the mentioned artists have never aspired to conform to standard photographic practices, and like him, some of them have also expressed their opposition to the very term photographer. The theorists Pavel Vančát and Jan Freiberg introduced for their broader thinking and grasp of the medium the fitting tem of "nonphotography"[3] referencing the term anti- or non-photography coined by Nancy Foote in 1976 in relation to postmodern photography.[4]

What makes their photographs so similar is their sophisticated work with technical imperfection, the peculiar tonality of the narrow grey scale and often the use of large formats in sharp contrast to the intimacy and apparent banality of the chosen subjects. Like Svoboda, they focus on their immediate surroundings such as the environment of their homes and the ordinary objects with which we share our private space. In a photograph constructed as an autonomous surface, the role of light in its reflection and absorption is essential, and so is the relationship between objects and their background, with its demarcation often so subtle that the two planes almost merge. This is of course enhanced by the narrow tonality of grey in the choice of black-and-white photography: "Since black-and-white configurations are theoretical, they cannot really exist in the world. But black-and-white photographs do exist. They are in fact the images of the conceptions of the theory of optics, which means that they arose from this theory. [...] Therein lies their strange beauty, identical to the beauty of the conceptual universe. This is why many photographers prefer black-and-white photographs as they reveal more clearly the true meaning of photography, i.e. the world of conceptios."[5]

In regard to the legacy of Jan Svoboda and his exceptional sensitivity, the exhibition shows selected photographs from the broader oeuvres of the individual artists in which forms and procedures more or less referring to Svoboda's work can be recognized. Due to the very narrow theme scope of the exhibition concept, images from various cycles and in some cases diptychs have been selected in collaboration with the artists, and it should be noted that their meaning, which was established in the original context through the composition of their units, has been altered for this specific event.

[1] SONTAG, Susan. O fotografii. Brno, Praha a Litomyšl: Barrister & Principal a Paseka, p. 80.

[2] OTHOVÁ, Markéta; CÍSAŘ, Karel; JANÍČKOVÁ, Adéla, a NOVOTNÝ, Michal. Markéta Othová: již brzy. V Praze: Národní galerie, 2022, p. 7.

[3] VANČÁT, Pavel, a FREIBERG, Jan (eds.). Fotografie?? / Photography?? (exh. cat.). Klatovy: Galerie Klatovy / Klenová, 2004.

[4] FOOTE, Nancy. The Anti-Photographers. Artforum, September 1976, year 15, no. 1., pp. 46–54. Also here:

Douglas FOGLE (ed.). The Last Picture Show. Artists Using Photography, 1960–1982 (exh. cat.). Minneapolis: Walker Art Center 2003, pp. 24–31.

[5] FLUSSER, Vilém. Za filosofii fotografie. Prague: Fra, 2013, pp. 48–49.

READY OR NOT, HERE I COME / SELECTION FROM THE FAIT GALLERY COLLECTION

31.05.2014 - 13.11.2014

Fait Gallery
Božetěchova Street 1 (entrance from Metodějova Street), Brno
31/5 – 13/11/2014
Opening: 29/5/2014 at 7pm
Curators: Denisa Kujelová & Martin Nytra

The painting The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch by Rembrandt Van Rijn from 1642 known as the Night Watch was for most of its existence, covered with a dark varnish and therefore it created the wrong impression of a night scene. The atmosphere of a mysterious meeting of characters with a darkened town like background was actually enhanced by losing the dynamics due to the clipping of the canvas based on the unfortunate initiative of the Amsterdam councilors. The vanish was removed as late as in the 1940s, which brightened the scene and along with the copy by Geritta Ludens helped to clarify the meaning of the depicted the scene. On 14th September 1975 the painting suffered several cuts by a kitchen knife. A man being driven by a crazy mind perforated the canvas by vigorous assaults in the style of Hans Hartung. He was not the first one nor the last one, who used this art work as a stage for public disclosure with the intention to break the veil of social conventions.

For the entire initial plot and interpretation of an exhibition there are two important topics: the uncovering of layers and an archaeological approach to clarify the cause of our misrepresentive perception and a need to change the reality of things. However, the process of unmasking itself creates a new semantic line of depicting the reality and is a kind of narration in itself, a theater and multi-layered scheme of a sometimes absurd nature. The turmoil caused by a gesture of the revolt is a type of catharsis of the creative spirit and present reality. It is also an event that starts a myth to spread ritually in all different directions. The event of the stage forms the topic of the show, which is reworded by subsequent productions and interpretations.

The stage divides the action on stage from other events beyond its borders, it is a space where the attention and sensitivity of the stakeholders meet on the level of a different meaning to daily routines. The talent to imagine falls into a private place for both the author and the audience, while language and gestures and symbols fall into the common features of cultural identity. The polarity of the different ways of perception, however, collides with the accelerating rate of received stimuli of a hardly identifiable quality that is typical for the period after the release of freely available technologies spreading the material, which is losing part of its function as a means in a dramaturgically limited performance. The specificity of the subject is replaced by an ambivalent, open figure, rapidly changing as well as non-binding content of the ongoing conversation. The boundaries between stage and audience mingle with indefinite timing into never ending event.

In these circumstances, the demand for autonomy is a challenging task, as well as the skill to keep focused and a compact constellation of meanings and depiction. The composition of fragments and forms, scenery of day and night, scenes, figures, types of characters. The stage is filled with piles from the depositories props, assemblages, staffage, the thought and may be even unthinkable language games become real, the spirit transforms into a concrete object, the established sign bends. The meaning is taken away, the content is attributed, the grimace and sketches with a serious tone and a sincere consistency are presented. Displayed is what is and has been. The Shooting Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch finds itself in a difficult, yet magical situation, surrounded by the Surrealism and Dada in practice.

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