Svätopluk Mikyta / Ornamentiana

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

Svätopluk Mikyta / Ornamentiana

30.11.2016 - 17.01.2017

Fait Gallery MEM
Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno
30. 11. 2016 - 17. 1. 2017
Vernissage: 30.11.2016 at 19:00
Curators:: Lucia Tkáčová & Anetta Mona Chisa

Svätopluk Mikyta experiments for a long time with materiality and visuality, and in his work playfully rearranges potential of the existing in the direction to the past and the future. His work is "hauntological" (Derrida), meaning that his themes and the creative process are marked by the „disjointed time". He does not address the time point of pure origin, always only the absent presence: big and small history, remixing of signs and symbols, designing new iconographies, samples of the new collective memories, alternatives of the reality tunnels, creating new beginnings and new ends, recycling of the old grammar, discarded books and dumped materials.

ORNAMENTIANA creates a fresh grid of correlations and searches for a new aesthetic. Remix of techniques and materials, collage-like installation approach, exploration of the very notion of „art” lead to a choreographed experience that includes the viewer into the overall assemblage.

ORNAMENTIANA changes the axes of our three-dimensional arena. It is based on Cartesian choreography of space, on regular but also moving grid of horizontals and verticals.

ORNAMENTIANA is a levitating surface full of relationships moving to the complexity of time and space, a visual manifest, detachment from the gravity of the committed towards the infinity, weightlessness, universality.

ORNAMENTIANA is a horizontal landscape, flat surface, horizontal sculpture, in which the unique vertical is made by the visitor of the exhibition, whose presence expands it by another coordinate.

ORNAMENTIANA reconstructs and translates ornaments, renders new visibility and allows the viewer to feel the archaeology of time. It is reoccurring use and subsequent stigmatization of folklore. Past future, future past.

ORNAMENTIANA is the acceleration of existing aesthetics. Exploring of the visual and material nature of perceiving of the world here and now. Anadigilogtal.

ORNAMENTIANA reviews the formal aspects of art on the border between high and low, the circumstances of their production in the context of never sleeping society.

ORNAMENTIANA is non-hierarchical, de-centralized, de-politicized. It denies the affirmative, fixed position, proclaiming, barricades and it contradicts our vision about our demonstrative political-activist gesture.

T: Lucia Tkáčová & Anetta Mona Chisa

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