JIŘÍ THÝN / LOVE LIFE

While loosely following in the wake of the previous exhibition, the second part of this overview of the Fait Gallery collection represents, in a certain sense, its opposite. In contrast to the previous instalment, which primarily represented abstract art from the second half of the 20th century, with a focus on geometry and structure, Czech modernism and its resonance and evident influences in contemporary Czech painting, this exhibition directs its attention towards art that places greater emphasis on depicting the real world. Contradicting the artists working in the spirit of geometric abstraction, presenting more universal subject matter, these works are inspired by reality, depicting it more or less explicitly while bringing to the forefront an appreciation of the human figure and its depiction.

It is precisely this fascination with the human body and physicality, manifested either directly or metaphorically through fragments, tools, and situations inextricably intertwined with it, that forms the framework of the exhibition. As such, the exhibition features a number of works reflecting themes such as sport, while at the same time exploring a certain existential decadence as well as aspects of humour within the context of this fascination with the human condition.

Chronologically, we loosely move on to works created predominantly after the year 2000, which is also evidenced by the wider representation of the medium of installation, an example of which is the large-scale work Deep in Enemy Territory by the Rafani Group, one of the group's most extensive projects. The installation fulfils an integral part of the exhibition and, as was already mentioned, comments on a complex psychological situation through the relationship between visual art and the symbolism of sport.

The exhibition follows a predefined selective framework, yet it does not aspire to present an indisputable message regarding a specific issue or topic, a fact that is understandable given its nature. It does, however, seek to showcase the fruits of Fait Gallery and Igor Fait's extensive collecting activities over the past 15 years, to present a series of high-quality works by both Czech and foreign artists, to allow them to come into their own in their individuality and, at the same time, to present the sphere in which these individualities coexist and support each other within a compact whole.

Ondřej Kotrč

Represented artists:

Vasil Artamonov & Alexej Klyuykov, Alžběta Bačíková, Ondřej Basjuk, Nina Beier, Marie Blabolilová, Josef Bolf, Radek Brousil, Jan Brož, Michel Comte, Milena Dopitová, Markéta Filipová, Jiří Franta & David Böhm, Jan Gemrot, Martin Gerboc, Michal Gogora, Damien Hirst, Katarína Hládeková & Ondřej Homola, Katarína Hládeková & Jiří Kovanda, Jakub Hošek, František Hudeček, Matyáš Chochola, Krištof Kintera, Eva Kmentová, Vendula Knopová, Vladimír Kokolia, Jiří Kolář, Eva Koťátková, Ondřej Kotrč, Alena Kotzmannová, Denisa Krausová, Nika Kupyrova, Alicja Kwade, Martin Lukáč, Kamila Maliňáková, Pavla Malinová, Pavel Matyska, Marek Meduna, Jan Merta, Svätopluk Mikyta, Kamila Musilová, Jan Nálevka & Václav Stratil, Pavla Naďová, Petr Nikl, Michal Pěchouček, Ivan Pinkava, Jan Poupě, Skupina Rafani, Tomáš Roubal, Lucia Sceranková, Pavla Sceranková, František Skála, Matěj Smetana, Václav Stratil, Tomáš Svoboda, Robert Šalanda, Adriena Šimotová, Jiří Topínka, Lubomír Typlt, unconductive trash, Kateřina Vincourová, Lenka Vítková

The exhibition Selection from the Fait Gallery Collection II is a sales exhibition and is the last exhibition of Fait Gallery in its current space at Ve Vaňkovce 2.

JIŘÍ THÝN / LOVE LIFE

25.10.2023 - 13.01.2024

Fait Gallery MEM, Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno

Curator: Jiří Ptáček

Opening: 25th October, 7 pm

Jiří Thýn (b. 1977) counts among prominent Czech post-conceptual photographers of the middle generation. Over the past twenty years, he has explored the photographic medium and its relationship to other art disciplines: objects, installations, moving images, poetry, drawing and painting. Through these "other media", however, he has always primarily employed photography as a tool that allows him empathetic, emotionally tinged and unavoidably subjective insights into the problems that he sets himself.

Jiří Thýn's works are not only reflections of the photographic medium and its relationship to other art disciplines. In fact, the photographer always strives to open up access to the subjects that he feels are topical and urgent. They are usually of a deeply personal or even existential nature. Through his own and appropriated photographs, he conducts a dialogue with himself, exclusively in the mode of an image that he allows to slip out of the safety net of conceptual thinking, like soap from wet hands. Thýn wants to act through images, since he is aware that this leads to different findings, just like a poet views reality differently from a scientist. Perhaps this is what his experiment with so-called non-narrative photography was intended to lead to in the past; in the experiment he attempted to overcome the situation aspect of photographs through the gestures of their interpretation through abstraction, specifically decontextualizations and various immediate artistic interventions. For him, photography is a true "medium" that stands between the subject and the artist, enabling him or her to combine content and emotional layers into a single artwork.

If we were to find a common denominator of the collection that Jiří Thýn presents for the first time at the exhibition entitled Love Life, it would probably be a pictorial contemplation of the possibility and impossibility of distancing from the situations and events that surround us. Is it possible to move away from the tragedies the visual echoes of which reach us from all sides? Is it possible to ascend to the orbit of the Earth and look at everything that happens on it without bias? Is certain timelessness decent to those who live in the present? Doesn’t it make one an unsympathetic, condescending cynic?

Jiří Thýn's photographs do not give us answers because answers always silence questions. They are actually meditations on images of misfortune, death and destruction, phenomena that do not disappear, even if they take on new forms. The high resolution of the digital images offers a dangerously powerful sensory experience. But can one be dazzled by such images for their extraordinary aesthetic qualities? Or are such images meant to intensify the emotional effect, like the highly expressive and naturalistic depictions of suffering in late Gothic paintings and sculptures? Yet those were meant to turn our ancestors to God. What are these modern images meant to turn us to? The imperative in the title turns into uncertainty. Can you love life in all its manifestations, even the heartless and cruel ones? Is it humanly possible? Can one be ordered to do so? Or can it be strongly recommended? Or is Thýn just whispering these words to himself?

So love life if you can.

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