David Fesl / The Clumsy Imitator of Artificial Life
Fait Gallery MEM
24. 5. – 29. 7. 2023
Opening: 24. 5. 2023, 7 p.m.
Text: Will Bradley
In his continuing interest in found objects and visual language, David Fesl presents a new exhibition situation that examines the notions of orientation and delivery. It is based on a selection of sculptural objects that were created last year and will be displayed in Brno for the first time. The accompanying text for the exhibition The Clumsy Imitator of Artificial Life was written by the curator and author Will Bradley.
Since 2015, David Fesl has been collecting found objects that fit in the palm of the hand. In the environment of his home studio, he arranges them into small, carefully assembled compositions that follow their own logic of relationships, shapes, textures and colours. Through minimal acts of arranging, turning and threading, the artist temporarily renders the objects illegible, and only later do they unfold, through the observers’ associations, into tangles of memories and events allowing them to stay within. The nature of the compositions balances on the edge of the concrete and the abstract, the original and the constructed, making way for poetic contrast: viewing the works, we can feel both demarcation and infinite vastness, the touch and the detour, permeability and obstacle.
Fesl installs his works with deliberate precision, using simple interventions to make the architecture of the gallery part of the whole installation, drawing attention to its institutionally critical component. David Fesl's practice raises timeless questions while at the same time providing a space for interpretation through contemporary narratives. It can be provisionally set within a discussion of like-minded artists including Miho Dohi, Vincent Fecteau, Brandon Ndife, Michael E. Smith and Jiří Kovanda.
David Fesl (*1995) graduated from the Academy of Fine Art in Prague in 2020. His previous solo exhibitions include ADZ, Lisbon (2022); Sperling, Munich (2022); T293 - Also on View, Rome (2021); Lulu, Mexico City (2021); Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna (2020); Karlin Studios, Prague (2020). His work has been shown at group exhibitions at the Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna (2022); Brno House of Arts (2021-2022); annex14, Zurich (2021) and the National Gallery in Prague (2016-2017). In July 2023, he will open his first exhibition in Tokyo, Japan in the Tomio Koyama Gallery. Since 2016, he has been also working in an artistic tandem with Sláva Sobotovičová.
Will Bradley is a writer and curator who currently works as an art director in the Kunsthall Oslo, Norway.
Press kit and photos for the exhibition can be found here.
Media contact:
Viktorie Chomaničová
chomanicova@faitgallery.com
+420 601 327 291
www.faitgallery.com