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Hana Tanimura
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review
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01.01.2008
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WÖLFLI"S UNIVERSE
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There is a fine line between insanity and genius, though it sometimes takes something extraordinary to remind us of it. The works of Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930), a Swiss artist who created thousands of drawings while incarcerated in a mental institution, present a window into the mind of a man who straddled that line. Formally, Wölfli was a schizophrenic with pedophilic tendencies. Informally, he… |
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Karin Rolle
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review
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01.01.2008
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CLASSIC WORKS OF AESTHETIC THEORY
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The French philosopher Alain Badiou, born in 1937, has written a manifesto of art. After half a century of post-modernist arbitrariness, he calls for new alignment: art has to articulate a specific truth; it has to have a liberating effect.
“We are tired of the end of art. […] Let us proclaim the artistic rights […] to inhuman truth once again. Let us accept once more that we are permeated by… |
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Marek Pokorný
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review
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01.03.2007
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A CHARMING EXHIBITION, OR KASSEL OF 2007
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As a world exhibition of contemporary art, the documenta of Kassel has two great advantages, at least as compared with other periodically organized exhibitions of a similar scope and impact. First, a five-year period, which elapses before the next exhibition is held, provides enough time to catch one’s breath, to perform research and to think; and second, the attention of the audience,… |
Marek Pokorný
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review
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01.03.2007
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EVEN NOW, MY NECK IS SORE, AND SO WILL BE YOURS.
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The final two volumes of The History of Czech Art, published this summer by the Czech Academia publishing house, have been celebrated as the culmination of years of work. For a great deal of those interested in Czech art from the last fifty years, these last two volumes will serve as a primary (and, considering they are under the aegis of the editors’ academic credibility, also respected) source… |
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Edith Jeřábková
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review
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01.03.2007
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OIL ON CANVAS
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The exhibition, Fire in the Librar y, Demonstration, the Earth and Elsewhere, can, without hesitation, be presented by the subtitle of one of the exhibited works, The Axe. It deals with a quote from a scientific publication of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, published in Berlin in 1922, within which the artists have found key idealistic passages underlined by someone. “There is a… |
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Tony Ozuna
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review
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01.02.2007
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MEXICAN ( AND MEXICAN) ARTIST IN PRAGUE - RIFAMOS! OR MULTICULTURAL LESSON NO.1
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Mexican (and Mexican-American) artists seldom have exhibits in Prague, but recently there has been a surge due to some group shows. At the abcd exhibition, “Art Brut,” there was the stunning work of Martin Ramirez (1895-1963), who was born in Jalisco, Mexico but lost his mind in America and died in a mental institution in northern California, and the overlooked Consuelo “Chelo” Gonazalez… |
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Alfredo Flores Richaud
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review
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01.02.2007
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GABRIEL OROZCO IN BELLAS ARTES
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To the glory of the most famous, the shortsightedness of their admirers is always attributed -Georg C. Lichtenberg
Shoot at contemporary art: there’s a growing sport
Ivan de la Nuez, Cuban writer, in Babelia, the cultural supplement of El Pais.
... I attribute to this state of the soul my repugnance of
museums. The museum, for me, is all of life. Fernando Pessoa, El Libro del Desasosiego.
… |
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Alena Boika
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review
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01.01.2007
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ABOUT WHITE AND BLACK: ABOUT WHITE
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The man I love once said, "I‘m walking now through a foggy park, it‘s dark and warm." I answered, "A year ago, there was a woman with a black dog there. Is she still there?" He answered, "No, but, there are a lot of camels now." I said, "They must be white." He answered, "Yes, in the darkness they seem white," and asked me, "Do you know how to count these midnight camels?" I answered, "As a rule,… |
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Leonor Nuridsany
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review
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01.01.2007
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SIMPLEMENT COMPLIQUÉ
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The FRACs are “simply complicated” as Thomas Bernard would say. But let us try to be simple at the outset: The initials, F.R.A.C., stand for Fonds Régionaux d‘Art Contemporain—the French regional funds for contemporary art. In other words, each region is charged with establishing, with the assistance of the French state and the French regions, a collection of contemporary art, and is responsible… |
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Lenka Vítková
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review
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01.01.2007
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CHOCHOLA’S HOMELESS PEOPLE
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Matyáš Chochola, student of scuture at the Academy of Visual Arts, Brno, was in Prague for the summer. When the Sculpture Grande exposition was set out on Wenceslas Square, Chochola had a lot of time on his hands. He befriended some homeless people who’d been living on a Vltava river island. They found material from containers and used a lot of tape. One day they decided to go install the whole… |
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