The opening will take place on Tuesday 18 April from 6pm, with a musical performance by the singer-songwriter Člověk krve. Image: “Galaxie” by Matěj Smetana.
Brno, Apr 14 (BD) – From next week, the Brno House of Arts will host three new exhibitions, focused on new work by artists who have long been associated with Brno, especially the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Brno Technical University (FaVU BUT). The opening will take place on Tuesday 18 April from 6pm, with a musical performance by the singer-songwriter Člověk krve.
On the ground floor, the exhibition “Time from the Outside” by Matěj Smetana will be on display in the Jaroslav Král Gallery, as well as Lloyd Dunn’s Hypnagogic Cycles in Vašulka Kitchen Brno.
The exhibition from Matěj Smetana presents the artist’s new digital and hand-animated drawings, projected on a large scale on the wall of the Gallery. The main theme of the exhibition, as the name suggests, is the observation of time and how it is mediated by the medium of animation. It looks at the passage of time from a distance, which cannot be verified by exact measurement, but is accessible to artistic investigation. It emphasises that the ongoing action in the animation consists of static images or drawings, which only give the appearance of movement when they are put into succession. Static records of moments that we don’t perceive in a smooth movement or action are made visible. For the artist, they are an opportunity to take control of time.
The content of the exhibition also reflects the themes of ageing, extinction, and nostalgia, which are connected to human emotion and the experience of time. Inspired not only by the mysterious object from Dürrer’s engraving Melancholia, but also by Lars von Trier’s apocalyptic film of the same name, the ageing Caryatids and the flying meteoroid create cultural and historical references that are as elusive and mysterious as time, whose unfathomable dimension far exceeds us.
Smetana (born 1980) has long been associated with Brno through his teaching work in the Environment Studio at FaVU BUT, and in recent years also at the Department of Art Education of the Faculty of Education. His conceptual work is applied in animated drawings, videos, objects and installations, in which he often refers to scientific procedures in the investigation and observation of various types of complex communication, language or movement systems.
Multimedia artist Lloyd Dunn’s exhibition Hypnagogic Cycles, which can be seen in Vašulka Kitchen, contains a number of audio-visual installations. These are inspired by the psychological phenomenon of the so-called hypnagogic state of consciousness, experienced in the moments between waking and sleeping. The medium of film is used as a mechanism to recreate the neurological changes that occur when we start falling asleep, phantom images and sounds that are reminiscent of memories, even if they do not relate to a specific event that was “actually” experienced before. Film therefore becomes a medium for generating dreams. In this sense, an instance of Hypnagogic Cycles is also a way for the artist to look back at the vanishing art of cinema.
The installation consists of a video projection and a separate soundtrack. The video and sound have different durations, so that the connections between the sound environment and the moving images on the projection screen are constantly shifting, creating new and new metaphorical combinations of image and sound. The projection is composed of several sub-images – two, three or more segments side by side. The overall composition induces a sense of uncertainty and inhibits the viewer’s automatic tendency to constantly interpret, complete perceptions and compose them into a rational formula and narrative. The first version of Installation was created for the Igloo sound gallery program in Jihlava, where it premiered in 2022.
The first floor of the House will be dedicated to the Navzájem project, in which Barbora Klímová opens intergenerational dialogue on the topic of remembering, misunderstanding, wishes and ageing. Klímová’s work has a long-term focus on the cultural history of specific cities, their institutions, personalities and relationships.
The exhibition includes a range of videos, in which Klímová forms a pair with personalities from the older or, in one case, the younger generation. The personalities were chosen not only on the basis of previous collaborations, but also with regard to how their voice is or is not currently heard and what significance their life story has for different generations. The actors talk about topics such as misunderstandings, memories, desires in life and ageing.
The accompanying program also reflects the theme of meeting, communication and sharing. Guided by the people represented at the exhibition, visitors can take part in a drawing workshop, a photography walk, or a writing lesson. You can find more information about the program at www.dum-umeni.cz.
All three exhibitions will last from 19 April to 9 July 2023
