corporally close, spiritually distant
spiritually close, corporally distant

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Garage Gallery Karlín

Artists

Alžběta Bačíková
Alžběta Bačíková (*1988, Hodonín, CZ) mainly works with audiovisual installations. In 2018 she completed a dissertation on the topic of documentary strategies in contemporary artist moving image at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology. In 2018, she won the Audience Award as part of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award for Encounter 2018. She is participating in the 2020 Prague Biennale, ‘Matter of Art’ where she presented a video Lavish Issue made together with Romany political scientist and human right activist Edita Stejskalová.

Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová
Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová (*1975 and 1977 in Nădlac, RO and in Banská Štiavnica, SK) have been working in collaboration since 2000. They both graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. They work across a variety of media including video, sculpture and performance. Their solo and group exhibitions include Floating Utopias, Lunds konsthall, 2020; The Influencing Machine, Nicodim gallery, Bucharest, 2019; a no, A voLcanic attaCk, a hiT, a Muse, Museumcultuur Strombeek/Gent, 2018; How Long Is Now?, KINDL, Berlin, 2016; What Does a Drawing Want?, Beirut, Cairo, 2012; Rearview Mirror, The Power Plant, Toronto, 2010; Gender Check, MuMoK, Vienna, 2009; 6th Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2008 and many others.

Nina Hoffmann
Nina Hoffmann (*1980, south of Germany, DE). She is a photographer and artist. At the moment Hoffmann is training as an occupational therapist.

Peter Janáčik
Peter Janáčik (*1966, Liptovský Mikuláš, SK). The backbone of Peter Janáčik’s work is a reflection on intimate experiences confronted with the complexity of human relationships. Formally, he draws on cinema language rather than the language of photography. Rapid edits take us from shots of young boys – fallen angels, to small, expressive still lifes. The rawness of photographed scenes, where it is unclear whether they are natural or staged (but what difference does that make today?) is intensified by attaching the photographs directly to the walls of exhibition rooms. Janáčik’s path towards photography commenced in the 1990s, when in parallel to photography he also dedicated himself to painting and drawing, employing all three media in installations. He combined drawing (with wax) with photography, transposed photography onto canvasses, or painted fragments from photographs. Janáčik developed his conceptual approach during studies at AVU in Prague and later at V·VU in Bratislava.

Kateřina Konvalinová
Kateřina Konvalinová (*1991, Pardubice, CZ). Her work can be characterized as autobiographical fiction, based on personal experience and amateurish research of interpersonal / interspecies processes and relationships, seeing the personal as political. She focuses on the so-called small life revolutions (life changing experiences such as falling in love, first LSD experience or a bad trip, etc.), as well as on the physical and mental symptoms of our times (pain, anxiety, fatigue, depression) and on psychological-therapeutic tools such as cracks, which can be used to reassess the current situation and deconstruct the status quo. Video and performance are the yin and yang of her artistic practice. In the years 2014-2020 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Her work was exhibited in Galerie AVU, 2017, Prague, City Surfer Office Gallery, 2017, Prague, Gallery Display, 2018, Prague, or etc. gallery, 2019, Prague.

Curators

Stephanie Kiwitt
Anna Voswinckel
Tereza Rudolf

Opening

13/10/2020  6 pm

Duration

14/10–2/12 2020

“You managed to enchant me despite my knowing you are horrible” says the main character quoting from a love letter in the video by Alžběta Bačíková. Divergences are the strong motive that build a connection between works approaching emotions towards “the Other”, such as love or desire from very different perspectives. Desire once being fulfilled might turn into passion. But if I come too close, I can’t see you anymore… Peter Janáčik’s photographs of young men shot over many years in one and the same apartment are not spoiling this fragile and painful moment of yearning, on the contrary, his boys are captured in the image. Their tender look is frozen and their bodies are isolated from passion and our gaze remains unfulfilled.

The prevailing norms of society regarding social relations and the influence of pop-culture are also reflected by the work of Nina Hoffmann or Kateřina Konvalinová. Both using the imagination and storytelling that might and might not be true to name something ungraspable. The exhibition works on several levels, one being more explanatory, trying to find a “right” answer for “what is love”, the other focusing on mere emotion, border crossing and intimate gestures for which there is no justification.

Press release

The Fotograf Festival is organised by the Fotograf 07 z.s., and held under the auspices of the Mayor of Prague, and with the support of the City Council of Prague (400 000 CZK), the Czech Ministry of Culture and State Fund of Culture.

Mediální partneři / Medial partners