Jiří Matějů, At the End of Summer 1967, 2011, pigments and mixed media on canvas, 191 x 323 cm
The idea for the exhibition project “Landscape” arose more than a year ago on the basis of a more traditional conception of the topic, a phenomenon deeply rooted in art history. It begins from the assumption that each artist must grapple with landscape at certain moments in the creative process. The artist attempts, for example, to faithfully render the landscape, or the landscape becoming, rather, a material and a process, capturing the impressions of the landscape. Otherwise the artist refers to its historical, mythological character and reviews landscape as memory, during which the artist very often responds to its sacred dimension. Landscape is also manipulated for the purpose of creating a coherent, new kind of nature; last but not least, landscape itself also becomes a location for creativity.
Recently, the landscape is also a topic of broad societal debates, both domestically and globally. Interest appears in the ecological subtext of landscape – for example, the harmfulness of monoculture is discussed, as is natural development with reference to the future of our planet. Many recent political decisions are a testament to this, the engagement of associations, and also public figures fighting for the environment and against climate change. In the artistic sphere, there are many exhibition projects concerned with the relationship of artists and their intervention into the environment. We can, therefore, speak about a sort of rediscovery of the connection between human beings and the planet and an attempt to protect certain areas.
The exhibition called “Landscape” at Hauch Gallery presents the work of eight artists whose pieces can be divided into several subgroups characterized by how they handle the topic of landscape and through which artistic medium, as if it were an event. In such a case the form limits and greatly codetermines the content of the work.
The first group is one we could call “Scanning Landscape”. Photography and technical images (Hiroshiho Sugimota, Time exposed: #310: Sea of Japan, Oki, 1987; #311: Sea of Japan, Oki, 1987; #328: South Pacific Ocean, Maraenui, 1990; #331: Tasman Sea, Ngarupupu, 1990) at this exhibition take on the role of what were once traditional depictions of landscape with the awareness of the fact that any photographic technique is, compared to the human eye, manipulative, and traditionally painted images contain a symbolic dimension in the form of the painter’s notions. The exception to factitious, faithful renditions can be photographs (Jiří Šigut: Shrub – Japanese Knotweed I/III and III/III, 25 June – 3 July 2007) taken over a long period of time of being left in nature where the resultant photograph becomes a record of an exterior process. The photographic paper treated with silver salts, through external circumstances, discards its sensitive layers and responds to the authentic imprint of nature – blades of grass, clay, branches of Japanese knotweed plants, etc., and natural light sources. When placing the photographic papers in the landscape, the artist lies down on the site together with them and allows himself to be surrounded by the cool of the natural world at night. These works transition into the section on “Dialogue with Landscape” in which what is highlighted is the element of physical contact – being with the landscape through an intimate performance. Capturing the grass in photographs and the need of the artist to meditate in nature can be perceived as a throwback to pastoral idylls, the moments when we arrive at the acknowledgment that certain places reveal their connection with ancient archetypes. The return to landscape-related myths about nature, to some of the displays and rituals of natural nations, can represent a need to find consolation in nature (Miloš Šejn: from the seriesAgara, 15 July 2015 004; 13 July 2014 001; 15 July 2015 002; from the series of 120 drawings Agara, 24 March 2016).To perceive, under the guise of the modern world, the outline of the ancient landscape means to be vividly aware of the persistence of original myths and traditions of various sites. These activities approximate the work with landscape that arrived at the end of the 1960s against the background of the upcoming the first bigger global environmental crisis. The journey to nature played itself out within the framework of projects of land art and action art activities in the wild.
We can also find inspiration for the conception of landscape in Eastern philosophy, for example, in Buddhism, which is more based on observation of the environment and deep knowledge of it, i.e., of landscape as well. In the spirit of the section “Painting in the Landscape Tradition”, one can see on the canvas how the material is wrestled with and the attempt at capturing the impression it makes (Petr Pastrňák: Arunachala, 2005; Fishpond 2006; Gerhard Richter: Iceberg,1982). The final section, “Landscape as a Model of Language”, presents works that project a certain environment, whether an urban one or a wild one, an exterior or interior, in which we are living and creates a structured language from it (Federico Díaz: Eccentric Gravity, 2015; Miracle 2015), Daniel Hanzlík: Sedimentation, 2013; Jiří Matějů: At the End of Summer 1967, 2011; Zen Wave, 2012). Landscape becomes a prefiguration that takes on the form of visual art, for example, through the process of deconstruction or analysis of the fundamental laws of physics and characteristics of working either on canvas, through relief, or with video.
Text by Monika Čejková
Exhibiting artists:
Federico Díaz, Daniel Hanzlík, Jiří Matějů, Petr Pastrňák, Gerhard Richter, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Miloš Šejn, Jiří Šigut
Curator:
Monika Čejková
Full exhibition documentation
20.12.2016–12.2.2017 Hauch Gallery, Prague