Ewa & Jacek Doroszenko / EXERCISES OF LISTENING

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

Ewa & Jacek Doroszenko / EXERCISES OF LISTENING

23.03.2016 - 30.04.2016

Fait Gallery PREVIEW
Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno
23rd March - 4th May 2016
Opening: 23rd March 2016 at 7 pm

Photo: archive of Ewa a Jacek Doroszenkom

Sound is a process of moving particles. Hearing is a physical, biological process. We are constantly experiencing sound, but most of it goes unnoticed because we are really not listening to it. Listening begins when we become conscious of sound and focus on this sense. In the art by Ewa Doroszenko and Jacek Doroszenko sound is treated as a legitimate material of a field of visual art.

“Exercises of listening” is a continuation of the project by Ewa Doroszenko and Jacek Doroszenko. The show consists of videos, graphic prints and sound installations in which audible and visible spheres interact with each other and the narration is based on the associations freely suggested by memory. Listeners find themselves more concerned with things than with sounds, which do not exist as visible matter. People often ascribe a meaning of a sound to object that created it. Putting these objects together makes some kind of narration and storytelling. This is the main reason that Ewa and Jacek Doroszenko typically use a representation of objects to reveal an audible essence of reality.

Video works “The same horizon repeated at every moment of the walk”, created during an artistic residence at the Fundació AAVC Hangar in Barcelona (2014) and “It’s hard to find a polyphonic body”, produced during an artistic residence at the Kunstnarhuset Messen in Ålvik, Norway (2015), shows the landscapes that becomes a musical notation system. In these short audio-visual compositions, an activity of moving figure determines the pitch on the scale of each frame, from higher to lower. Primary elements of a musical composition by Jacek Doroszenko are left to the determination of Ewa Doroszenko as a performer. Jacek Doroszenko creates also a combination of sounds that have been captured in an immersive environment. The installation consists of loud speakers. Each speaker emits different track and all together produce a high frequency sound wall, full of details.

Ewa Doroszenko confronts herself with acoustic environment through more remote references, attempting to translate selected audio events to the visual language. Her graphic prints illustrate the flow of sound material: collecting, archiving and reproduction in the context of digital times. As well as audio recordings, graphic collages consist of detailed layers, but the basis for these works is a connection to modern music notation systems. Ewa Doroszenko uses graphical language to articulate the characteristics of a particular sound recording: rhythm, pulse, progression are elements of each composition also in a field of visual expression.

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