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Tomáš Svoboda, Exhibiton at the Doubner Gallery, September 1 – 15, 2005


The interest in advertising, media and the stereotype of institutions is omnipresent in contemporary art, but it is a rare moment that we might have any consistent interaction with the given surroundings when defending such artistic positions. Tomáš Svoboda considers making use of real patterns for logistic use important. These givens are a challenge for him to apply knowledge of routine processes typical for designated environments and their standards of communication. The given isn’t only the starting point, but also an assignment and accepted limitation. Svoboda doesn’t merely recycle processes, he extrapolates through wit, manages to introduce unexpected content into the standard structures and that is exclusively with the use for these structures and a lobby of typical patterns and tools. A formal economy of his works.
The broad content of Svoboda’s work is fundamental. His versatility and ability to penetrate into external environments doesn’t make it any easier to proffer a succinct description of his works and doesn’t help us locate some principle that unifies his activities. The exhibition at Doubner Gallery in Prague, where we could see works of a various kinds, only supports this.
How can one define what links these works together? Movement on the axis. Weight. The process triggered. It would be appropriate here to add that he showed off his printer, the one to which from time to time he devotes full creative power, printing entirlely original A4 pages, for himself. The prints from the artist’s printer are only one of Tomáš’s two positions: the intimate or domestic position, but at the same time they relate to the uncontrollability of what happens around us. Svoboda respects that it is not only people who have their own lives and individual needs; objects do as well —especially electronic devices.
Automated tasks are integral to the processes of our everyday reality. They exist as precisely programed procedures whose purpose is to not falter. Here and there something catches one off guard, but only to keep it as a stereotype, or mere business, the task needs a nudge here and there. Since the time when Svoboda painted sociologically-oriented paintings aimed at housing conglomerates, objects and parking lots, a lot of time has passed. He is no longer inclined towards simple reflexions of objectively shared social symbols, his interest has shifted to the workings of a limited logistics, concrete working methods and movement. In the project An Offering to Use Advertisement Space For Rent in a Personal Flat, Svoboda employs his experience as a marketing and media consultant. For an offer to rent advertising space in his own flat, he received a positive response from 3 out of 100 firms, 9 of them answered him with a personal email letter, albeit negative (“we have limited possibilities,” “we’re unable to respond positively to your offer”). The promotion manager of Karosa was probably interested in the symbolic price of 1 Czech Crown per square centimeter per year:
“Dear Mr Soboda, we thank you for your offer, I have to say that no one has ever offered us such good conditions, and that is why we have decided to take advantage of your offer, although the end users of buses are not our primary group. I attach our advertisement together with the payment for advertising for one year. It should be located by the light switch button in the foyer of the flat. We would be grateful for the photographic documentation of placement, which you have promised. We don’t require a personal visit.”
It is a positive result that some played the game. The Czech media tycoon MAFRA got it. Reacting to the originality of the offer, the firm even considered cooperation for the next year, reacting with joy: “…It would be interesting to use the whole space of the floor of your flat for advertising purposes. But this is associated with an advertisement on a broom stick (see p.3 of your offer, item toilet), where the frequency of use is momentarily below the level of our expectations. The increase of frequency would surely enable an earlier decision.” Svoboda’s prank caught the attention of a BENZINA’s PR representative, who payed for its logo to be placed in a “lucrative position,” on the toilet with a voucher for gas.
The central installation, Černého Street 428, is the first thing we notice in the exhibition, a tersely constructed house could represent any building whatsoever. Only the basics are delineated in the prints hung on the front outer facade of the house. The record of all the inscriptions and signs on the walls of the parental home in Černého Street 428 and all the captions in the interior.
Svoboda serves a documenting entity that pursues its own trajectory in space and time. The video 1 km wouldn’t work as a circus act, but it is a precise experiment from the field of kinetics that proves that one kilometer can be done in 4 minutes. The camera captures a parking lot seen from the window of a house. A car goes methodically in a circle, at a constant speed, mechanically repeated.
At issue is the consistency with which Tomáš Svoboda accepts his critical role. He enters art with the civil attributes of the mundane. It is for this reason that his works communicate so effectively. He enables us to imagine well established situations with a certain aberation from the norm.
Along with his principle of advertising, subtly subversive activities manipulating the public space of the media belong to his sphere. The fact that Art Can Heal could catch the attention of the more sensitive viewers of the Czech TV show Kotel, whose guest was the minister of health care, and where Svoboda waited patiently in the auditorium until the suggestive transparent caught the eye of the camera. Here, is also his acting role of the manager in a TV soap opera or an act in the popular cooking contest on TV Prima, where he debuted with chicken Cézanne.
Svoboda’s performance at Doubner had no clear specified name. At first it seemed, that the concept of the exhibition had no pre-selected key, and that the four projects displayed were linked by nothing more than the period of time during which the works were created. In fact, it is a well balanced project, working with the polarity of the inner and the outer, of the intimate and the public, and with the amount of free choice of an individual within the limitations.

01.01.2006