Jiří Ševčík - Exhibition Überlebenskunst (Art of survival)

AUTHORSHIP

Equal co-authorship: Jiří Ševčík
Other Authors: VVP AVU

CLASSIFICATION

Classification: documentation -

DATES

Date of creation: 2000

SUBJECT

Other persons appearing in the film: Jan Černý, Krištof Kintera, Alena Kotzmannová, Jiří Kovanda, Ján Mančuška, Jana Ševčíková, Vladimír Skrepl

COLLABORATORS AND PARTICIPANTS

Other collaborators: Jiří Ševčík, Jiří Ševčík

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Duration: 00:28:40
Sound: Sound

EXHIBITIONS, PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS

Audiovisual broadcast (TV, radio): Artyčok.tv
Date of broadcast: 14.8.2013
Link: http://artycok.tv/lang/cs-cz/20154/sevcik_uberleben_kunst

NOTES AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Notes: The exhibition Umění přežít (Überlebenskunst) took place in 2000 in NBK gallery in Berlin and later that year in Kulmbach, Germany. It was curated by Jana and Jiří Ševčíks and Alexander Tolnay.
Videodocument was curated in the Window to the Archive programme of VVP AVU in 2013.

with:
Jana Ševčíková, Jan Černý and participating artists ( Krištof Kintera, Alena Kotzmannová, Jiří Kovanda, Ján Mančuška, Petr Pastrňák, Michal Pěchouček, skupina Pode Bal, Míla Preslová, Vladimír Skrepl, Ivan Vosecký).

Adopted text on the work: Jiří Ševčík has been filming exhibitions and his visits to art studios since the mid-1990s. He has shot dozens of hours of documentary material about Czech and foreign art. He was the curator of the exhibition Überlebenskunst (Art of Survival) which he organized in 2000 together with Jana Ševčíková and Alexander Tolnay for Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (exhibited also at the chateau Plassenburg in Kulmbach). The curators conceived the exhibition as a political testimony about the new demands on art of the East at the end of the 1990s, which grew sober leaving behind bombastic hopes of becoming a part of the western cultural context that seemed so real after the fall of the iron curtain. In their introductory text Jana and Jiří Ševčík wrote: “There was a collapse of alternatives, a loss of interest and only a marginal position remained. Seen from inside, the problem East-West still exists. For the West eastern art is interesting only if it is compatible production or produce of victims. Although collapse of alternatives does not result in any other resort but integration, however, the so-called eastern art has to define its own context, its own Difference and a new formula of survival.“ Apart from views of the exposition the film shows scenes which are an almost lyrical testimony about the good atmosphere during the installation of the exhibition and about the friendly relationships between the exhibiting artists. We can see the curator and the artists helping each other as if they were in reality a professional installation team. The video shows Krištof Kintera, Jiří Kovanda, Alena Kotzmannová, Ján Mančuška, Vladimír Skrepl, the curator Jana Ševčíková and Jan Černý, the owner of the gallery Galerie MXM, which cooperated on the production of the exhibition. Krištof Kintera is working with a soldering gun preparing his Talkmen (1999), Vladimír Skrepl producing his Cosy Home (2000), Jiří Kovanda is drawing on the wall with spaghetti and with the help of Jan Černý (Le dessin automatique, 2000), Alena Kotzmannová is hanging up photographs of Mice Holes (1999), Ján Mančuška is preparing his Morning 2001 (1999) from soap, cotton swabs or lemonade straws. Background music comes from the series Twin Peaks from the exhibited video by Petr Pastrňák Twin Peaks – an afternoon at a building site (1994). As if an apocalypse should come after this idyl – after all the exhibition is about the art of survival. Berlín, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, 18. 3. – 30. 4. 2000, exhibiting artists: Krištof Kintera, Alena Kotzmannová, Jiří Kovanda, Ján Mančuška, Petr Pastrňák, Michal Pěchouček, the group Pode Bal, Míla Preslová, Vladimír Skrepl, Ivan Vosecký.
Source of text: Okno do videoarchivu VVP AVU
Author of text: Terezie Nekvindová, Sláva Sobotovičová
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