CHRISTIAN WEIDNER / VINCENT BAUER / CORNELIA LEIN / HERE AND SOMEWHERE ELSE

In the exhibition project of the versatile visual artist Petr Nikl, his creative approaches intertwine in a vast imaginative garden - a kind of ecosystem of moving and seemingly static organisms cultivated by the artist, but at the same time partially self-grown, much to his delight.

Petr Nikl is one of the few Czech artists who need little introduction to the cultural public. Almost everyone will remember some of his exhibitions, a painting, drawing or print, an exhibition project he initiated, a music recording, a concert, a theatre play or a performance or, for example, a book for adults and children he wrote and illustrated. However, it is not this multi-faceted and decades-long presence of Petr Nikl in our cultural space that makes him an unmistakeable and a rather unique figure. Indeed, this presence would not be worth talking about and would be just mindless hyperactivity were it not characterized by the imaginative poetics with which the artist draws us into a fascinating space of fantasy and play.

If we were to sum up what Nikl communicates to his viewers and listeners, it would probably be a non-violently subversive impact on the consensus of dignified and pragmatic adulthood which creates a wall of restrictions and a hard-to-fulfil desire to break it, and Nikl's ability to indicate, through the outcomes of his work, a path towards the fuller experiencing of the multi-layered and mysterious nature of existence that spreads underneath the veneer of the mundane and the superficial absorption of reality.

Nikl co-founded his puppet theatre company Mehedaha as early as 1985. At that time, he was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague where intermedia fusions or performative forms in visual art were not discussed and taught. In accordance with the ideas of the cultural nomenclature of the period about clearly defined fields for the individual artistic disciplines, they were not even considered potentially enriching.However, he soon found kindred spirits among the members of the Tvrdohlaví art group which made its first public appearance in 1987, with understanding not only for artistic activity but also for self-realization in music and theatre. Yet only in Nikl’s case involving the wide spectrum of image, sound, language and body did it become the basis of all creative activities.

Like the performances of Nikl's plays where his visual sensitivity is strongly applied, many of his art projects are determined by the performative and procedural aspects of art. This is by no means limited to paintings which are executed by mechanical machines with the artist's assistance, often in the presence of the audience. This is also true, for example, of his recent works on paper in which he explores new possibilities by dipping rolls of paper in paint in anticipation of (again) only partially predictable results. Randomness and spontaneity help the artist to cross the horizon of his own imagination and provide him with the possibility of wonder at the resulting image. They are not far from Nikl’s drawing method in which his skill taps unconscious sources and the drawing is thus "let" grow out of contents which otherwise remain inaccessible. In them, too, Nikl is merely a participant who does not have a hundred-percent control over what kind of treasure his mind and hands will bring.

The exhibition in the Fait Gallery is rooted in the metaphor of a flower bed. While a garden is associated with a branching cultural symbolism, the flower bed as its sub-component is only a kind of working subject. Under normal circumstances it is cultivated and maintained in a state where it serves well the greater whole or a given purpose which, depending on the intentions of the grower, is either ornamental or utilitarian. A flower bed that is not weeded and consequently wild is a sign of neglect, while care is characterized by a high degree of restriction and control over what can take place in this demarcated area. In contrast, Peter Nikl lets his imaginary flower beds overgrow in anticipation of the unsuspected and surprising. For him, they are not what he carefully prepares and then follows a plan but a combined activity of plants, soil, sunshine, rain, insects, earthworms, moles and other elements that enter into the process. The flower beds - not dissimilar to stretched canvases or sheets of paper because of their limits - are thus filled with actions that we can only partially observe. And anticipate even less.

Thanks to this, they can turn into fascinating revelations which, through their self-organization and somewhat "disorganized organization" take us beyond (or "under") an objective and clear understanding of reality, to its massive organicity and complexity that is never fully graspable. And yet, this "big" takes place in the encounter with something as "small"... as a flower bed, a drawing or a painted image.

Text: Jiří Ptáček

CHRISTIAN WEIDNER / VINCENT BAUER / CORNELIA LEIN / HERE AND SOMEWHERE ELSE

05.04.2012 - 17.05.2012

Fait Gallery MEM
Božetěchova Street 1 (entrance from Metodějova Street), Brno
Opening: 5/4/2012 at 7pm
Curator: Martin Nytra

The motif of the exhibition of Christian Weidner, Vincent Bauer and Cornelia Lein is the source, starting point, complex phenomenon, human being and the basic element of matter in interaction with the world, of which each of them creates their own idea. They influence it and what they receive is constantly being evaluated, depending on situation in which they currently are. In the case of the authors themselves it is mainly self-reflection of their own work and their innate self in an environment of constant changes, stimuli, vague forms and illusions. It is also about a reflection on the nature of communication, originality, free will and sense of time throughout cooperation process. The search for the starting point of a message, the initial situation from which it arose, or the furthest point of the last recorded contact with an object; it is motivated by a desire to recognize and again to experience the taste which faded from memory.

Interaction between subjects is possible under conditions which are typical for most of the forms of cooperation. The instinct to act, intuition and conscious will to speak with the world, leading to specific changes, to the movement and the perception of time in the entire process of action as a confrontation of memory with a concept of future, taking place in a concrete situation of space. Thinking about the future, our desire is being formed; it activates our ability to construct possible scenarios and anticipate the consequences. We are aware of the fact that our speech must be articulated if we want to avoid unwanted circumstances of misunderstanding. All this is connected to the basic problem of the way and form of representation, how to express the content of our message in a way that would be understood by the viewer as well. In the distance communication there is a possible limit: blindness or mutual invisibility of a sender and a recipient. All around us there are lots of messages of unknown origin and in this situation is our ignorance, depending on a situation, extremely unfavorable. Therefore, the anonymity of the author and the unknown identity sending a signal serve as a stimulus of our natural curiosity. But there still remains the question of substance. What is the cause of interaction between world and life within?

Go back