25.10.2023 - 13.01.2024
Fait Gallery, Ve Vaňkovce 2, Brno
Curator: Denisa Kujelová
Opening: 25th October, 7 pm
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.
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Fait Gallery MEM & Fait Gallery PREVIEW
Božetěchova Street 1, Brno, Dominican Square 10, Brno
8/2 – 27/3/2013
Opening: 7/2/2013 at 7pm
Curator: Denisa Kujelová
The present projects by Kamila Musilová were realized especially within the medium of photography. Already here, however, appears her interest in other techniques in the processing of particular topics. It is mostly about the principle of “temporary installation” with the help of which the author intuitively creates new relationships between objects and their meaning and specific places. These objects are then transformed in space with the help of photography.
In the gallery MEM, Kamila Musilová steps out of the framework of a two dimensional image and presents a collection of objects and installations created specifically for this space. The exhibition title Under the doily with a delicate texture, that is borrowed from the convolute of the Cottager Church called The Book of cottages, is supposed to evoke the nostalgia associated with elapsed time. Kamila Musilová so indirectly refers to her own sentimental relationship with her grandparents and family in general, rooted family traditions and stereotypes, not always sweet memories which she tries to generalize from the intimate level to well known experience of us all. Doily as a bearer of stiffness, precision, order and peace and quiet at home semantically cuts through almost all exhibited works, whether in a form of an oversized wooden fence or as a flow of floating carpet fringes. Used ready-made objects from grandfather’s workshop refer to the thin line between do-it-yourself, unskillfulness and artistic creation. Substitution of surprising object dimensions (too big or too small) suggests a shift of the original meaning of things into an absurd level.
The whole exposition is overseen by the double portrait of Valentina Tereshkova and Yuriy Gagarin, the first “couple” in space, who are metaphorically seen by Musilová as futuristic parents of human race. The technical processing but rather evokes old wedding portraits hung above beds in bedrooms.
The second part of the exhibition located in the gallery Preview naturally follows and completes the spatial exhibition of the first part. Besides the photos of the older cycle Grandfather and Grandmother the artist installs video as well, whose individual footage takes place in various parts of the garden and the cottage of grandparents. These are static shots of real state of things, but by separating particular scenes there is a strange story about the life of local things and people.