Prague, National Gallery, Trade Fair Palace, October 5, 2016 – February 2, 2017 (Jiri Kovanda), October 5, 2016 – February 19, 2017 (Moving Image + Megan Clark), http://www.ngprague.cz
Three contemporary art shows in the National Gallery: First the Third Mind. This was a series of collaborative artworks between Jiri Kovanda, a well-known conceptual/performance artist, and a number of his artistic peers or younger artists from circle of his students and friends. While Kovanda remained the common denominator, the artworks on display appeared rather incoherent and without any further connecting elements. There was a range of positions. In some cases there was a clear resonance and synergy in place, while in other works, the collaborative aspect has been reduced to a collage-like juxtaposition of a Kovanda photograph and the collaborator’s own artistic product. Kovanda’s work stands out by the very modest and simple materials and gestures used. The collaborations which built on this trait of his work appeared as most sensitive. The simplicity was close to shocking, but that is what Kovanda draws on, balancing on the thin line between the invisibility of everyday gestures and exhibitionist nature of “art”.
The Moving Image Department presented moving image works by Maya Deren and Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler, in addition to photographs by Marketa Othova, a text-based work by Liam Gillick and an installation by Josef Dabernig, who was also responsible for the architectural setup of the show. Without spending too much time around, the show did appear as a coherent whole, and the tone of it has been set by Dabernig. It was a very cool, detached feeling that permeated both the moving and the still images. It echoed a modernist abstract coolness (connecting featured artwork references with the space of the Trade Fair Palace itself) as well as the institutional structures on which it was build and within which it has been embedded over time.
Megan Clark’s Somatic was both related and opposed to the aforementioned coolness. On one hand it also followed a minimal and simple approach, but on the other hand it weaved in poetic and feminine aspects. The main materials have been wide velvet stripes loosely hung from above bending onto the plane of the floor and historical metal pomanders (kind of fragrance dispensers for home use attributed with disinfecting and health-improving effects). At first it appeared almost as if there was nothing to see, but the new “poor” installation of the materials made them look fragile and vulnerable, especially in relation to the masculine architecture of the Trade Fair Palace interior itself. Together with the listing of – probably fragrant – ingredients, it opened up a space for imagination and gave a second life to these forgotten, mysterious and overly decorated craft objects.
