READY OR NOT, HERE I COME / SELECTION FROM THE FAIT GALLERY COLLECTION

The early work of Jiří Hilmar (*1937) was marked by the art trends of the time, especially the principles of Concretism^[1] (whose club^[2] he co-founded in Czechoslovakia in 1967), as well as by the activation of the viewer, the processuality of perception and the thematization of movement. Kinetic objects in the form of mechanical machines and objects working with light sources and shadow effects^[3] were followed by several years of the artist's thorough investigation of the phenomenon of mobile procedural perception in paper reliefs folded into optical structures. These mostly square formats of various sizes produced an optical illusion through the movement of the observer and the change of his or her position in relation to the work, thus transforming the visual qualities of the surface.

In the square, whose shape the artist saw as an ideal anonymous form^[4] referring to the ideas of Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich or Victor Vasarely, he created structures in various systems according to mathematical principles and seriality from horizontally, vertically and diagonally arranged monochrome or multicolour strips of folded and, in many cases, also incised paper. The opto-kinetic principle was achieved by varying the height of the strips, their shape, the method and degree of their bending, the method of perforation, and also the shape and colour of the tempera used for individual fragments (most often circles and their sections). The variation of contrasts and intersections continued after his emigration to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1969, where he settled for more than 40 years.

The active involvement of the viewer was also part of the next cycle of works which were defined by a system of overlapping vertical strips or strings. In this new structural plan, in which one of the elements was always firmly attached to the base and the other hung freely above it, the works could again be set in motion, now literally, by the participation of the observer. Parallel to this, in the 1970s the artist created monochromes from layered tracing paper, fixed to canvas or wooden boards, most often also in square formats. The individual layers of transparent paper were only recognizable by their deliberate distortion with various types of creasing, perforation, rippling and gradations or variations of the repetitive regular patterns of the collaged fragments.

After moving to the Halfmannshof art colony in Gelsenkirchen in 1974, located in the heavily devastated landscape of the Ruhr area, Hilmar naturally moved towards environmental issues. In addition to paper, he began to incorporate into his reliefs natural materials such as jute, wax, kaolin and also wood, in the form of sticks and matchsticks. In the 1980s, when nature became an equal co-agent in his work, and creative intervention in natural processes started to prevail in his work, he turned permanently to a single material - wood. He partially dismantled the original autonomous shapes of branches and trunks and then reconstructed them by rejoining, tying or crossing them into new units of wooden objects and installations. He deliberately interfered in the originally round found fragments of trees in an invasive and openly completely contradictory square manner followed by a final gesture of re-rounding, in order to manifest the oneness of man and nature, which he sought in his work and life.

Literature:

HILMAR, Jiří, VÍCHOVÁ, Ilona, HIEKISCH-PICARD, Sepp. Jiří Hilmar/ Adagio. Praha, Museum Kampa – Nadace Jana a Medy Mládkových, 2015.

POHRIBNÝ, Arsen. Klub konkrétistů po dvaceti letech. In: Revue K, 1988–89, nos. 32–33.

“Optické reliéfy“ Jiřího Hilmara, Rozhlas, ČRo 3 – Vltava, Mozaika, 24 February 2011.

[1] The principles of Concretism were defined in interwar art by Theo van Doesburg, who first used and coined the term in 1930, and later in the 1930s by Max Bill, the main promoter of this art movement. De Stijl, the Bauhaus, and also the Russian avant-garde were followed in the 1950s by the activities of the Swiss neo-concretists led by Richard Paul Lohse, and partly by kinetic art in the Düsseldorf Zero movement, the GRAV group in Paris, the Gruppo N in Padua and the Gruppo T in Milan.

[2] Together with Tomáš Rajlich, Radoslav Kratina, Miroslav Vystrčil and the art theorist Arsén Pohribný he co-founded the KK/CC - The Concretists’ Club (9 May 1967 - ca. 1972), whose activities were followed by the new KK2 in 1997 and KK3 in 2007.

[3] In this context it is also worth mentioning hydro-kinetic objects from 1974.

[4] “Optické reliéfy“ Jiřího Hilmara, Rozhlas, ČRo 3 – Vltava, Mozaika, 24 February 2011.

READY OR NOT, HERE I COME / SELECTION FROM THE FAIT GALLERY COLLECTION

31.05.2014 - 13.11.2014

Fait Gallery
Božetěchova Street 1 (entrance from Metodějova Street), Brno
31/5 – 13/11/2014
Opening: 29/5/2014 at 7pm
Curators: Denisa Kujelová & Martin Nytra

The painting The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch by Rembrandt Van Rijn from 1642 known as the Night Watch was for most of its existence, covered with a dark varnish and therefore it created the wrong impression of a night scene. The atmosphere of a mysterious meeting of characters with a darkened town like background was actually enhanced by losing the dynamics due to the clipping of the canvas based on the unfortunate initiative of the Amsterdam councilors. The vanish was removed as late as in the 1940s, which brightened the scene and along with the copy by Geritta Ludens helped to clarify the meaning of the depicted the scene. On 14th September 1975 the painting suffered several cuts by a kitchen knife. A man being driven by a crazy mind perforated the canvas by vigorous assaults in the style of Hans Hartung. He was not the first one nor the last one, who used this art work as a stage for public disclosure with the intention to break the veil of social conventions.

For the entire initial plot and interpretation of an exhibition there are two important topics: the uncovering of layers and an archaeological approach to clarify the cause of our misrepresentive perception and a need to change the reality of things. However, the process of unmasking itself creates a new semantic line of depicting the reality and is a kind of narration in itself, a theater and multi-layered scheme of a sometimes absurd nature. The turmoil caused by a gesture of the revolt is a type of catharsis of the creative spirit and present reality. It is also an event that starts a myth to spread ritually in all different directions. The event of the stage forms the topic of the show, which is reworded by subsequent productions and interpretations.

The stage divides the action on stage from other events beyond its borders, it is a space where the attention and sensitivity of the stakeholders meet on the level of a different meaning to daily routines. The talent to imagine falls into a private place for both the author and the audience, while language and gestures and symbols fall into the common features of cultural identity. The polarity of the different ways of perception, however, collides with the accelerating rate of received stimuli of a hardly identifiable quality that is typical for the period after the release of freely available technologies spreading the material, which is losing part of its function as a means in a dramaturgically limited performance. The specificity of the subject is replaced by an ambivalent, open figure, rapidly changing as well as non-binding content of the ongoing conversation. The boundaries between stage and audience mingle with indefinite timing into never ending event.

In these circumstances, the demand for autonomy is a challenging task, as well as the skill to keep focused and a compact constellation of meanings and depiction. The composition of fragments and forms, scenery of day and night, scenes, figures, types of characters. The stage is filled with piles from the depositories props, assemblages, staffage, the thought and may be even unthinkable language games become real, the spirit transforms into a concrete object, the established sign bends. The meaning is taken away, the content is attributed, the grimace and sketches with a serious tone and a sincere consistency are presented. Displayed is what is and has been. The Shooting Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch finds itself in a difficult, yet magical situation, surrounded by the Surrealism and Dada in practice.

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