Magda Wunsche Jinoch s trávou

PRAGUE BIENNALE PHOTO 2

Romantic Construct / Romantický konstrukt

Curated by Daniela Dostálková and Tomáš Pospěch

The exhibition was prepared for the spaces of a former office of a Prague high-rise from the 1980s. It follows the installation, performance and, to a certain extent, the subversive trends in contemporary photography that evoke references to the Romantic tradition. Just as the distance of several decades has reformulated our view of office spaces of a state socialist company, the curatorial approach focuses on artistic and social strategies applied to a Romantic perception of nature of the home. In the attempt to understand the very title Romantic Construct a kind of interdisciplinarity of artists is offered. These artist freely interpret the themes of landscape or still-life, forest or bouquet; any material is a challenge for them. The presented artists remix Romantic forms in a wide variety of ways; they utilise artistic strategies as the master copy for perceiving a personal space – the home idyll, or they transfer these strategies to perceive a remote space – a landscape that we don’t inhabit, but are entering and that we surely know from the accumulation of visual images. In many cases they also playfully probe the essence of sculpture and performance; they create their aesthetic forms for the camera's viewfinder. In addition, forms of re-cataloguing, remixing of the visual tradition and classification systems appear in their work.

Matthieu-Lavanchy-The Aftermath

Musilová-Kamila-Dědeček a babička

Romantický konstrukt-pohled do instalace

Sanna Kannisto-Leptophis ahaetulla 2006

We observe this in three mutually pervading themes leading from the home idyll and their Romantic rituals, to a Romantic reminiscence in experiencing nature, to performances for the camera that reconstruct nature and apply artistic and social strategies to it.

                The current use of photography in contemporary art is formed by a number of parallel developmental trends.  Today’s photographer brings together in his profession the skills of an activist, moderator, editor, sculptor and architect, philosopher, sociologist, gardener or design engineer. Based on the forms in which the photographer awakes the performer and sculptor in himself, the exhibition follows the reformulating of the relationship to nature or to the home, but not as the Romantic tradition is reflected in reference to decadence, nostalgia or sentiment or as it is recycled in contemporary fashion photography. Instead of the Romanticism as understood by philosophy or expressed in literature and art, we are observing its “living-room form”. We usually naively fetishize nature and the forms that it creates, just as we do to constructs such as “country”, “home idyll” and “return to nature”. The presented artists bring to the landscape (at least since the high Middle Ages a construct systematically modified by people) an experience from the world of art and, using these tools, approach the landscape with a new perspective. The backdrop that is situated in front of the camera does not change on the whole, but the content is brand new. It seems that this Romanticism is somewhat cold and depraved, but it’s apparent upon closer inspection that new utopias are applied to old models.

Tomáš Pospěch and Daniela Dostálková

Artists:

Jan Adriaans, Netherlands

Melanie Bonajo, Netherlands

Amira Fritz, Germany

Sanna Kannisto, Finlandia

Matthieu Lavanchy, Switzerland

Kamila Musilová, Czech Republic

Bára Přidalová, Czech Republic

Yan Renelt – Kryštof Kalina, Czech Republic

Jaap Scheeren, Netherlands

Diana Scherer, Netherlands

Michaela Thelenová, Czech Republic

Martin Tůma, Czech Republic

Tomáš Werner, Slovakia

Henk Wildschut, Netherlands

Magda Wunsche, Poland