VERONIKA VLKOVÁ & JAN ŠRÁMEK / THE SOURCE

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

VERONIKA VLKOVÁ & JAN ŠRÁMEK / THE SOURCE

07.05.2014 - 20.06.2014

Fait Gallery PREVIEW
Dominican Square 10, Brno
7/5 – 20/6/2014
Opening: 6/5/2014 at 6pm
Guest: Martin Baar
Curator: Martin Mazanec

The shell of the machine controlled unfolding of the exhibition space with book with black pages. The exhibition The Source by Veronika Vlková and Jan Šrámek exists based on a series of cooperative exhibitions, which was an assembling of the painting, models and blending of their form and content. The cooperation, which brings gradual merging of individual styles is within individual exhibitions conditioned by the topic, that affects also the process and dynamics of the ativity.

The exhibitions It does not have to dawn on straight away (Školská Gallery, Prague 2012) and The Lost perspective (Chodovská fortress, Prague 2012) based the outer shell on the mythological story, which was part of the animated video and a particular publication. A couple of exhibitions The Magic of forgetfulness (Blansko Gallery, 2013) and You get what you can carry (Nau Gallery, Prague 2013) again based their skeleton on a mythical story of an air crash at the Crimea, where the main hero, hidden under his own story, was Joseph Beuys. While the first two exhibitions were based on a parable about a girl living in a post-apocalyptic landscape and a main format was animation and a book, the story that was loosely paraphrasing the confession an artist was a gallery illustration consisting of a mosaic of watercolors, computer illustrations, objects and animations covering a broad range of symbolic and cultural themes.

The recovery of the figures from watercolors and drawings, was in previous exhibitions done through their animation and editing, that was done in cooperation with Martin Búřil. The current exhibition on the other side is intended to work mostly with the reality of the time experienced whilst visiting the exhibition. The exhibition leads to thoughts about the momentum of pictures that are static, but also moving freely in the environment of their own previously undefined landscape.

Projections in the centre of the space is a constantly changing image that will never be the same. Therefore the gallery is metaphorically changed into a board game, which can be accessed from the pages of the black book, through the projection or the absurd motion of objects measuring the "gallery time." There is an inspiration to discover the experienced space, to it´s literal and even purely literary permeability based on the presence of the borders of the exhibition itself.

Words from a book, paintings on the wall and onomatopoeic robotics of mechanisms revive the contents of the exhibition, which is not defined in advance, but is "derived" through the archetypes of literary genres and symbols. The exhibition The Source with Martin Baar as a guest opens another topic for Veronika Vlková nd Jan Šrámek. For the first time this is not a joint exhibition in the meaning of combinations or sub-assembly of individual artistic works, but the process of joint exhibition articulation.

Martin Mazanec

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