Jiří David, Tell me your name

E
Jiří David
:
Tell me your name!
dvorak sec contemporary
If you have to choose between better, even though it brings you no profit
or worse, which will benefit you, decide correctly.
Arnošt Lustig
Texts: Martin Dostál and Jiří David
Translation: Tera Semenov
Editor: Olga dvorak
Conception of catalogue: Martin Dostál
Graphic Design: Karel Kerlický & Martin Dostál
Photos: Dušan Šimánek
Published by: KANT 2011 and dvorak sec contemporary
ISBN: 978-80-7437-049-6
dvorak sec contemporary
Dlouhá 5, Prague 1, 110 00, Czech Republic
Tel. +420 604 204 653
[email protected]
www.dvoraksec.com
© 2011 dvorak sec contemporary
© 2011 kant publishers
Hardened crusts of colors, artificial sedimented rocks, sudden layers of chaos,
ambiguous emergence of trying to force its way through fragments, but also
clean, shining blocks from the hand of an axe. Tattooed skin, flea markets,
burnt frames, glass beads, melancholy attempted by panic, anxiety, yet only
the undying night waiting for the light and reasons. Demon of memories that
I cannot express, as they persist the sight, before words, the language, before
its own identity. Fear. Autonomy of industrial colours in cans, their chemical
reactions, consistency, slow, its very slow calcification, that often forces me to
its tearing. I admire their spatial compactness, exapansivity. Live... You are
what you are... I manipulate by identifying objectivity, full of own obscurity,
scorn and doubt, aware of the necessity of transcendence.
Jiří David 2011
There is always something important worth painting.
Martin Dostál
In art, there is always something that outlives its time and its creators. A lot of it, however, falls into cracks of oblivion. Jiří David does
White series from the years of 1986 and 1987, with a stylistic born development and fragmented layered painting, of which he came of after
not create for the afterlife, but solely for the now. Presented here are his most recent works of his painted series, which he painted in the
his barbaric years. Of all the cycles of all of his work David bases his work so he is able to diverge to his up-to-date modern and original
last two years at his new studio in Zbraslav. For sometime now Jiri David has kept these works hidden from the inquisitive, so he could
compositions.
show the work all at once, after its completion. The work consists of a series of paintings of medium and large formats, and with that also
two works, that are something of a painting-relief-object, and yet still again I realize, how Jiri David is a contemporary artist, from which
For this series, David concentrates mainly on the formal aspects of the composition, without losing its essence and meaning of focus.
many aspects will live on to eternity.
Mostly abstract in nature, the paintings however reflect on Davids grounds, which is the shifting between the image of the norm, finding
the beauty in the aestheticized grotesque and exploring the potential and power of the painted image. David experiments with different
techniques, the types of colours, exploring neo-modernist informalities, jumping to minimalist extremes, with great gusto compositions,
Sometimes it seems that all of Jiří David‘s work in its own way is a memory and reflection of the future. With its volatile uncertainty, its con-
an element that runs through his work and many of his paintings from the late 80s. Assemblage is an essential feature and characteristic of
fusion, with overlapping themes and meanings, its calming chaos, its provocative aestheticism, its timelessness for me, makes it the quality
David’s work, they are polluted and aesthetically awe-inspiring, logically emerging from pseudo-informalities, its fragment materiliatiza-
of the work it is today. It is the feeling and look of the work in which future archaeologists of art will condemn or refine to be known of our
tion defines and creates the texture of the painting. These assemblages form into objects and installations, changing back again to the two
time. This is also why his newest works are convoluted in a Davidovsky timely and timeless manner. He is focused and distracted, intimate
dimensional form of image on canvas. The composition reveals itself out of its context, into a different or new form of contextualization.
and impersonal, fragmented and integrated, authentic and derived. It seems to me that David’s visual concepts are a continuous process of
At the same time, each of David’s paintings are a polemic of undertones of hidden ideas and meanings, a shift of aesthetics. This moment is
emergence and sometimes also dwindling, a single unique work that changes in the quiver of personal emotions and experience of revoke
a fundamental part of David’s mentality, the questioning of “desecration” on the canvas appears already in one David’s juvenile paintings,
and grief, social depression and compression. There are external reactions into ones human life, in which the actor has frequent attempts
‘Under the sun’, 1967
of loss of conjunctions of personal and artistic integrity in the seemingly pragmatic behavior of our Czech and world history. Enervating
contrasts of the internal and the onlooker however, is the originating ground of David’s art that is of such tension to the breaking point of
conflict of the lived and aesthetic, because in the end everything ultimately melds into one.
David, like a true artist, is also a master of color. He is able to find the perfect tone and intensity, understanding its possibility in meaning
and connotation, he understands its limits, how to soften the color to black or white, diminish adverse shades, utilizing the “creaminess”of
the surface and drip-run effect of the paint. He avoids over-use in color, but it is still one of the integrating elements and features of his
Currently Jiří David, who despite in all manner of conceptual divergence to objects, installations, texts and photography is after all, pri-
work and style. It’s of no surpise that one of his key works in his new series are two works of which the canvases are filled with little paper
marily a painter – as is his life choice since childhood, he created paintings, in which he tries to be fresh with attack but also immersed
boxes of hardened paint. This not only shows that David searches for new and different ways of working and painting, but also through
with wise experience. His own experiences, which he does not allow to be pushed aside, distinctly integrates into his canvases. It is as if
„dead“color systematically arranged in rows of boxes – caskets revealing his life-skepticism of the possibilites of art. David moves between
David wanted to create an excellent part of his endless series of art, where he consolidates older happenings, so that he can make them
the state of dreaming and awakening in his paintings. Processing personal experiences, memories, fragments of media and visual percep-
more inticing the next time. In his new collection of work in spite of his diversity there is a compact consisteny. In a way, it theoretically
tions in the overlapping sequence of chaotic continuous flow, which is exposed. These fragments organize the painting, as evident traces
and formally synthesizes and fragments his previous series of paintings, like those of Home, Brutal abstractions, paintings from the exhibi-
of these sensations, which perhaps adhere to the artists mind, but are still the basis of creation of the flesh of art. He organizes his motives
tion Laskavost in Gallery Špala from1995, or large-size format work presented at the Wannieck Gallery in 2007 and an associated two-part
in an obsessive desire to paint in all rage of ways, with the vibrant medium that allows but also forbids. For us and for himself, for now
publication entitled Do not go, leave and I will not remember, it is dangerous! But we should also take into consideration his Black and
and for eternity.
Pick me…I’m clean / Vyber si mě..Jsem čistý.., 200 x 200 cm, 2009-2011
Unsalable bitch / Neprodejná děvka, 180 x 200 cm, 2009-2011
Roll it over'n grease it down / Otoč se a namaž to, 185 x 185 cm, 2009-2011
A minute ago / Před minutou, 75 x 75 cm, 2009-2011
TV News / TV zprávy, 100 x 70 cm, 2009-2011
Cosmic Utensils / Kosmické náčiní, 240 x 220 cm, 2009-2011
Feral / Neochočený, 219 x 222 cm, 2009-2011
Under Pressure / Pod tlakem, 100 x 75 cm, 2009-2011
Mammography / Mamografie, 100 x 60 cm, 2009-2011
Gas absorption / Absorpce plynu, 60 x 90 cm 2009-2011
Separator / Oddělovač, 100 x 60 cm, 2009-2011
Close proximity / Nevýhodná blízkost, 195 x 180 cm, 2009-2011
Soap Titan / Mýdlo Titan, 90 x 70 cm, 2009-2011
Whopper / Nehorázná lež, 85 x 85 cm, 2009-2011
Double shrinkage / Dvojí smrštění, 100 x 100 cm, 2009-2011
Beauty is a French phony corruptio / Kráse je francouzská zkomolenína, 195 x 180 cm, 2009-2011
Vain attempt / Marný pokus, 90 x 90 cm, 2009-2011
I am Your psychiatrist / Jsem váš psychiatr, 222 x 221 cm, 2009-2011
Don‘t jizz on the sofa / Nehoď semeno na pohovku, 220 x 246 cm, 2009-2011
Let it squirt II / Ať to stříká II, průměr 220 cm, 2009-2011
Let it squirt I / Ať to stříká I, průměr 205 cm, 2009-2011
Writhe / Svíjet se, 200 x 180 cm, 2009-2011
Space Oddity / Prostor podivnosti, 70 x 70 cm, 2009-2011
Fame / Sláva, 60,5 x 65 cm, 2009-2011
The Man Who Sold The World / Muž který prodal svět, 85 x 100 cm, 2009-2011
Where the remaining people ar / Tam kde jsou zbývající lidé, 219 x 222 cm, 2009-2011
Facing the sea / Obrácený k moři, 219 x 251 cm, 2009-2011
You are what you are / Jsi to co jsi, 60 x 100 cm, 2009-2011
Completely empty / Úplně prázdný, 239 x 222 cm, 2009-2011
What remains / Co zbývá, 195 x 180 cm, 2009-2011
Before Glamour / Před půvabem, 210 x 281 cm, 2009-2011
Solo exhibition – selected
2011
E: Řekni mi své jméno ( E: Tell Me Your Name ), dvorak sec contemporary,
Prague, Czech republic
2010
Maadha Kai?, Madadayo! Galerie Paté patro, Praha , Czech republic
2010 Revoluce, objekt ve veřejném prostoru Prahy, (Revolution, object in public
space Prague)
2010 Exhibition is(no)t.. Salon Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw
(with Jiří Kovanda)Poland
2010
Kohinoor – 15 min. movie, Cinema Mat, Praha, Czech republic
2009 Předběžná retrospektiva, (Preliminary Retrospective), Galerie hlavního
města Prahy
Předběžná retrospektiva, (Preliminary Retrospective), Moravská galerie
v Brně
2009 Dotkni se mé hlavy (Touch my Head), Wyspianski 2000 pavilion Cracow,
Poland
2008 Až peklo přemrzne (When Hell Freezes Over), Dominik Art Projects,
Krakow, Polsko
2007-8 I do not remember, it is dangerous, Wannieck allery Brno, Czech Republic
2007 object in public space Hůl pro nevidomé, Cane for Blind, Václavské nám.,
Wenceslas Square, Prague, Czech republic
2006 Fifth Seal – Sacharov centrum, Moscow, Russia
2003 Gallery FUTURA (with Annika Larsson) – Sober Minded, Prague, Czech
Republic
2002 Gallery V. Špály, No Compassion, Prague, Czech Republic
Heart on the Castle, public neon instalation, Prague, Czech Republic
2001
The Glow, neon instalation in public space on the roof galerie Rudolfinum,
Prague, Czech Republic
1997
Gallery Anita Neugebauer, „Meine Geissein“, Basel, Switzerland
1996
„Hidden Image“, Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw, Poland
1995
Gallery Rudolfinum, „Hidden Image“, Prague, Czech Republic
Jack, Tilton Gallery „Hidden Image“, New York, USA
1993
Gallery MXM, „One day exhibition“, Prague, Czech Republic
1991
Forum Stadtpark Graz, Austria
1990
Edition Arlelier, Graz, Austria
1989
Riverside Studio London, United Kingdom
Group exhibitions – selected
2011
2010
2009
2009
2008
2007-8
2007
2006-7
2006
2005
2004
Art on Lake, Budapest, Hungary
Já, bezesporu (Undeniably me), Galerie Rudolfinum, Praha, Czech Republic
Kašpar noci,(Caspar of the Night) galerie Futura, Praha, Czech Republic
Prague biennale 4, Praha, Czech republic
Czech Photography of the 20th century, Kunsthalle Bonn , Germany
No Places, No Frontiers, Dominik Art project, Krakow, Poland
Form follows…Risk, Futura / Karlín Studios, Praha, Czech Republic
Prague Biennale, Praha, Czech republic
Galerie Futura- Chaplin Resident Fighter, Prague Czech republic
National Centre for Contemporary Arts, In time between Moscow,Russia
Prague Biennale 2, Prague, Czech Republic
Berlin Photography Festival 2005 in Martin Groupius Bau (September till
November), Berlin, Germany
Je t’envisage, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
PHOTOESPAÑA2004 Madrid, España
„The 10 Commandments“, The Hygiene Museum Dresden, Germany
„About Face“, Hayward Gallery London, United Kingdom
2003
Aeroplastics Gallery, Pulse of America, Brussels, Belgium
PPULSE, BND studio, Milano, Italy
Neue Galery, exhibition Mars, Graz, Austria
Gallery Künstler, München, Germany
Exhibition „REAL by REEL“, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen, Hazenstraat
27, 1016 SM Amsterdam, Holland
Mois de la Photo à Montréal-Maintenant, Montreal, Canada
Face, photo exhibition (project from The Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne,
Switzerland
2002 Aeroplastics Gallery, Wonderland, Brussels, Belgium
2000 Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, „The Century of the Body: Photoworks,
Switzerland
1999
Kunsthaus Muerz, „Anagrammatical Body“, Murzzuschlag, Austria
1995
„On beauty“, gallery Regina, Moscow, Russia
1993 Ludwig Forum, „Second Exit“, Aachen, Germany,
„Coexistence of Art“, Biennale Venezia, Italy
„Unfair“, Artelier Graz, Frankfurt, Köln, Germany
1992
The Art Institute of Chicago, „Contemporary Photography from Czechoslovakia“
1991 Aperto Venice Biennale, Italy
1990
Museum of 20th Century, „Zeichen im Fluss“, Vienna, Prague, Pecs, Zagreb
Walker Hill Art Centre, „Contemporary
Czech Painting , Austria
1989
Gallery Artists Space, „Metaphysical Vision Middle Europe“, New York, USA
Kunstverein, Köln, Germany
1987
Group „The Obstinates“ (first exhibrtion), Lidový dům, Prague,
Czechoslovakia
1984–1989 (more non official exhibitions in Czechoslovakia, title – Confrontation)
Bibliography
Articles – selected
Jiří David, Frieze, text by Petr Fischer, November–December 2009
A krtek’s notes from Prague Pt. 1, Frieze blog, text by Jörg Heiser
Jiři David Rust (Paintings 2006) AP Pleskot Gallery, Prague, 2006, Flash Art 08,
March–April, 2007, text V. Čech
The Portrait Now, National Portrait Gallery, London 2006
Making Faces: The New Photographic Portrait, Thames & Hudson, London. 2006
Art in America, issue September 2005, Richard Vine, Doismilecinco ecinco (Brazil) 2005
Spike art Magazine (Austria), Noemi Smolik, 2005
Books
Hidden Image, texts by Václav Bělohradský, Jacques Derrida, Martin Dostál, Helena Kontová, Jana Ševčíková and Jiří Ševčík, KANT 1995
Jiří David, texts by Jana Ševčíková, Jiří Ševčík and Jiří David, KANT 2001
DAVID DAVID, texts by Martin Dostál and Jiří David, KANT 2002
Inside Out, texts by Martin Dostál and Jiří David, KANT 2006
Don‘t Leave, Go Away, texts by Martin Dostál, Jiří David and Noemi Smolik,
KANT 2007
I don‘t remember, it is dangerous!, text by Martin Dostál, KANT 2007
Jiří David – Nikdo jiný, zatím nic, Tranzit, 2008
Preliminary Retrospective, texts by Martin Dostál, Noemi Smolik, Edith Jeřábková,
Jiří Přibáň and Marek Pokorný, Moravian Gallery in Brno, 2009