Milan Knížák - Material Events

AUTHORSHIP

Equal co-authorship: Milan Knížák

CLASSIFICATION

Classification: documentation -

DATES

Date of creation: 1977

COLLABORATORS AND PARTICIPANTS

Other collaborators: Dobroslav Zborník

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Duration: 00:06:12
Sound: Sound

EXHIBITIONS, PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS

Compilation containing the work: Czech Performance Art: Film and Video 1956-1989, Edice VIDA 5, VVP AVU, 2015; Filmy a videa, Milan Knížák, 2010
Attachment included with work’s publication: booklet CZ + EN

NOTES AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Notes: Film by: Dobroslav Zborník
Digitized color 8mm film with sound

The film is one of the accompaniments of the book Génius Milana Knížáka (published by Agentura Lucie in 2010) along with other materials on a DVD.
Translation of original titles in the film:
"MATERIAL EVENTS
MILAN KNÍŽÁK 1977
VARIOUS MATERIALS MEETING. MATERIALS' DISCUSSION. FIGHTS OF OBJECTS. WARS OF MATERIALS. PERSONIFICATION. VARIOUS EXISTANCE REALMS MEETING.
FILMED BY: DOBRA ZBORNÍK
RICE, METAL, MILK, PAINT
FLOUR, GLASS, PLASTIC, VARNISH, FIRE
METAL, GRASS
METAL, ACID, GLUE
MILK, BLOOD
METAL, ACID, BLOOD
PLANT, GLUE
METAL, EGGS
MEAT, ACID, COMBUSTIBLES
ETC."
DVD menu title:
"Materiálové události, 1978
akce
natočil Dobroslav Zborník"


Adopted text on the work: According to Knížák, Material Events brings together several different themes: it is a discussion of materials, a struggle between substance and matter, a material war. The film was made at a time when Knížák’s work was becoming more conceptual in nature but still applied certain principles of performance art; by its nature, it was neither happening nor performance. The color film, with a soundtrack by the band Aktual, documents the performance of Material Events on 23 March 1977 in the woods between Most and Lovosice. It depicts several events: hot metal pouring into an egg; fire mixing with stone and food; meat, acid and flammable materials etc. “In this action, I tried to create the tension between the events in apparent reality and the events in our imagination. The impression that this tension makes on our minds can be entirely novel,” Knížák later wrote. Material Events definitively heralds Knížák’s conceptual work from the second half of the 1970s, when he gradually moved from real actions towards processes for the mind.
Source of text: České akční umění: Filmy a videa 1956-1989, Edice VIDA 5, VVP AVU, 2015
Author of text: Pavlína Morganová, Terezie Nekvindová, Sláva Sobotovičová
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INFORMATION IN PARTNER DATABASES

Artlist #1: Record at Artlist