We welcome you Mr. Pokorný under other circumstances this would be true (Under other circumstances, Dům pánů z Kunštátu, Brno)

We Welcome you Mr. Pokorný, Under Other Circumstances
That Would Be True
Under Other Circumstances That Would Be True,
Petr Brožka, Filip Cenek, Ondřej Doležal, Soňa Goldová, Jiří Havlíček, Barbora Klímová, Jana Kalinová,
Milan Mikuláštík, Jan Nálevka, Tomáš Ronovský,
Pavel Ryška
Curator: Jana Kalinová
Dům Pánů z Kunštátu, Brno, 6. 2. – 9. 3. 2003

The opening of the exhibition spaces in reconstructed House of Masters of Kunstat holds huge promise for Brno. At a time when contemporary art in Prague — even Špalova Gallery — is being commercialized, Brno could quickly begin to speak with a strong voice. A contract with Marek Pokorný, who before his departure for Italy shaped the Czech environment of 1990’s with unseen brilliance, points to this. His return should be warmly welcomed by the welcoming committee.
Nevertheless Pokorný did not keep DPzK’s first exhibition to himself, entrusting the conductor’s wand to young artist Jana Kalinová. He clearly knew what he was doing. With great ease she manages the task of mapping out the young Brno scene. In the city, she heads miniature gallery Eskort, where — though with difficulties and alternating success — mostly the young names of Moravian region are presented.
However Kalinová is not the ideal unbiased curatorial cherub. She has her own style, in rough features that correspond to her visual preferences. She looks for possibilities in conceptual arts with ties to sociological contexts and technological model of hyper-reality. That is why the list of names in Under Other Circumstances That Would Be True can lead the more acquainted person to the assumption that the curator did not leave grooved tracks. Petr Brožka, Pavel Ryška, the duo Jan Nálevka and Milan Miluláštík as Mina, 2. 1 D (Jiří Havlíček is also hiding behind the team label), Barbora Klímová … are all old friends. Appearances, though, are often misleading and Under Other Circumstances That Would Be True is an interestingly mixed exhibition with a very subtle accent.
Pavel Ryška, for example, perfectly carries out a series of graphic encounters of nicely revived ready-mades and milestones of conceptual history in the sense of “what would have happened, if…” At the same time, through his lyrical comic-like handling of the subject, he attacks the sentimental nature of lovers of sad eyes and other infantile, old maid delights. The group 2. 1 D show a black and white film story of a digging dog out on a walk — without a punch line and with almost Zen-like pensiveness, but with a BBC logo in the upper corner of the screen.
Brožek’s painting abstractions of Kaprůn 1 and 2 are a mixture of crystalline dynamics of shapes and of precisely balanced, droopingly tame color spectrum. However, in essence, his “abstracts” are in fact the deconstructed grasping of mountain experiences, painted to the limit of unreadability. If these paintings sound cryptogramic, they are maybe not the best choice for an exhibition. But the speculative mind may begin to wonder whether his paintings doubt the foundation of “gallery art” itself through their demand for long-term “in-room” discovery.
Curator Kalinová found her dove of peace in the silhouette of a bird on a glass plate meant to warn off wayward flying birds. She probably photographed it because the plate was broken. Either there was an accident (perhaps by a careless bird!?) or someone could not manage to keep that much peace. And Soňa Goldová proves that everything in the world could be blue, for example, if we only acted persistently, with her photographic still-life from her all-blue objects.
In the nick of time Kalinová here throws the calming intermezzo of the post-constructive art of Barbora Klímová into this whirl of emotions. She has strengthened the framework of her objects and forced into it the ordinary elements of interiors growing closer (grates for the ventilation system or blinds) as well as the ephemeral glimpse of surprise. They make use of mimicry so perfectly that it is possible to walk through the room to Mina’s installation without knowing there was art present. Tomáš Ronovský’s minimal work made from the scratch strips on the sides of matchboxes, completes this restful room, but not demandingly.
In opposition to this restful position, art group Mina breaks in most unscrupulously with their projection of texts of exciting porno-blasphemy by Robert and René, accompanied by a loud video of fire and gas ejaculations.
Artifacts in this constellation offer their meaningful corridors, and do not clash with each other, but create clever space between. Myself, I would only protest the banal photographic Landscapes of Ondřej Doležal with their images of domestic plants and toll stickers, as if the pictures were shot through the windscreen of a car. That is why Under Other Circumstances That Would Be True distils from the Brno scene something other than what the contemporary Czech scene favors to the point of exhaustion: commentary on things, environments and events. The exhibition builds on the possibility of combination with one’s personal commentary of another’s emotive reality.
This concerns a fresh experiential model, and this always reaches out to address the viewer. And Kalinová managed an exceptional piece: she has shown that Brno’s well-known conceptual circle hasn’t slackened a bit.

01.04.2002