Peter Demek / Status

Even today, we still tend to understand a picture as an autonomous entity, a unique, final object which has a life of its own and naturally separates itself from the whole of the world. For that matter, we have spent a long time pursuing this, so it’s all good! However, there exists a close link between picture and word, including the inner ones. They belong to each other by their very nature, yet we seldom stress that the connection should be direct and, especially, generally accessible so that everybody can go through the same gateway. Then, however, there come moments when a picture communicates nothing but solidarity, shared being and one existence when the picture itself not only moves between horizons and transcends them but it is also absorbed by reality. This fully applies to Petr Veselý’s pictures. Their objectivity involves not only the time dimension but also a transcendental one.

Ernst Gombrich writes in his reflection on illusion that the power of interpretation can’t be overestimated, mentioning J. M. W. Turner whom he views as somebody who deliberately and in favour of what he sees suppresses all he knows about the world.[1] Both are also relevant today, as we are moving on the same border of discernibility. Petr, however, turns not to what he can see but to what he can touch.

The moment of touch is magical, a touch has the power to take life and also to restore it. The laying of hands is an ancient ritual, hands radiate warmth and coolness, recognise, and in some cases also heal. The essence is always the same: the expression of craving for the original, the real, for what is genuine and to what we, at least imaginarily, return. Gombrich does that himself when talking about abstracted forms as a phenomenon of western visual culture which is certainly remarkable yet fatefully lacking any assessment rules. In Petr’s case, however, we move on the opposite side of the spectrum; a picture is an abstract, grey form, yet it is permanently striving at figuration, or evolves from it. At the sane time, what is abandoned calls for attention which is equally reversible, and the movement we perform during its recognition is thus cyclic and without memory. Echoes of objectivity are secondary, yet they have rules – and these manifest themselves in this way.

Petr’s work is about constants which regularly come to the fore. This regards both his poetry and what can be termed the natural life of things. As in a truly home environment things do not just appear but exist, they meander in forms and functions and their being has an order which also involves decline, so they are like this in the artist’s pictures, or rather, his pictures are like that. They show what a close link there is between them and the world if we deliberately insert them in the framework of our existence. Matter captivates.

Petr is aware of this, of course, otherwise he wouldn’t put so much effort into the bridging of the gap between reality and its image, between what has come to pass and what we expect. He also likes to enter this space, shaping it and summarizing it. Medieval altars in museums are the relics of other autonomous worlds, and the objects of the ordinary world devoid of their function are also like that. Naturally, this is an expression of reduction, but also concentration and (controlled) absence which, paradoxically, grows stable in its loss and thus resonates all the more its original function and talent.[2] A hand frozen in motion, a shirt stretched in its bend moving from the field to the picture and beyond expresses this perfectly. As Ivan Blecha writes, “a reflection that the restricted position of the observer (…) leads to a restricted presentation of a thing is wrong and the statement about the necessary non-representationality of some aspects of reality, about its permanent distortion, is in fact unreasoned extrapolation.“[3] A picture is often the only thing left of something that once existed. It is a notch of a knife in a cupboard.

^{^[1]}E. H. Gombrich. Umění a iluze. Studie o psychologii obrazového znázorňování. Praha 2019, p. 235.

^{^[2]} In the last decades the formative task and nature of “things” has also been resumed by the western philosophical tradition, namely by Bruno Latour and object-oriented ontology (OOO).

^{^[3]}Ivan Blecha. Prostory zjevnosti. Dílo ve struktuře světa. Zlín 2018, p. 129.

03.12.2015 - 28.01.2016

Fait Gallery
Božetěchova 1, Brno
3rd December 2015 - 28th January 2016
Opening: 2nd December 2015 at 7pm

Curator: Michal Novotný

Photo: Martin Kacvinský

The word “reality“ in Czech contains “action“. Reality then is not something neutral and independent, but on the contrary it is a matter of action, strength and work. The fact that the reality is actually torn out of the world confirms also the word concept. In Czech the root of the word concept suggests a physical grip, separation and perhaps connections, such as the case with "accepting a husband or a wife".

In the same meaning, as reality is connected with action, Peter Demek’s work is related to realism. The Slovak word used here (realism) is not chosen because of the nationality, but because of its better sound. Re-a-li-sm reminds us of the sound of the slitting saw cutting the iron. In realism you can not separate the "what" from "how".

The matter in realism, just because it’s realism, always flows with the idea. The ability to see the ideal form, "how it’s supposed to be," is indeed a matter of years of training, the growth of synaptic structures of neurons in the brain. A sudden understanding, a flash, as the word again suggests, is a release of energy, the reaction of electrical nerve impulses to the seen. A shape or rather a form, that Peter Demek sees in this flash in a specific every day life situation (such as the girl folding paper on the train or a speaker cord rolling down the stairs, or otherwise endless testing on paper or in a workshop), forms fundamentals, foundation for further work. One could almost say, that Peter in this flash peeks into the invisible structure beneath the surface of things. Realism can indeed be very mystical, just because Peter‘s objects are somehow more than just what we see – they have some sort of essential pre-matter aura. However the understanding of each man is always a sudden flash, that can never quite be replicated and simply expressed. Peter then, thanks to the years of training of sensitivity in compositions, forms and shapes, for a moment seems to understand how things forming the reality, which we don’t really notice most of the life, really are.

This inseparability of matter from the thinking and thinking from the matter continues also in the emphasise of processuality on the work. Fundamentals – theme – shape – a form that was abstracted, or rather made real, because in realism we can not speak about abstraction however was not fully grasped even at the moment of insight, and thus can never be made completely and permanently real. The tool helping to get closer becomes for Peter Demek on one side a sheer perfection of processing, which always faces the boundaries of material and tools – mediums, or vice versa – a certain roughness and brutality of the material used. The energy and time used for the object‘s creation then only further highlights the tension – like "revenge of the surface." However, the process must, because of the clear unavailability of the final outcome, continue outside the object. The motive materialised in the medium that Peter always places into a certain context, which is always a specific environment, whether it is in the gallery or the exterior, and at the same time into a physical mount, a platform, that helps to place them in this space. The situation created is then manipulated by performative actions. This leads to what might be called a "meeting" of an object with human activity or other objects. Because the never fully available result is just in the tension between the surface and the inside, the emphasis may take place both by covering and revealing, by changing of a part or the whole, or outlining or sweeping into and in all cases by an action irrecoverable or unrepeatable. All three steps however do not need to necessarily be present or implemented as it is not important, and not always entirely possible to distinguish them. They all rather just refer to what happens between them, or rather in the middle of a circle among them, like the invisible electrons that shoot by create the shape of the nucleus of an atom, which is not possible to see in the wavelength of light.

Michal Novotný, curator

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