Dante Daniel Hartl (*1994) is a visual artist with a distinctive post-conceptual approach. Although he studied at the Painting Studio at the Prague UMPRUM, his work is characterized by spatial objects, experimenting with atypical materials and their properties. He often works in series in which he emphasizes a strong ideological basis, interwoven with a touch of decadence and his typical black humour. Deliberate provocation is a tool for the artist to immediately gain the viewer's attention. In this way, he opens the door deeper into the stories of the individual works, in which he seems to strip reality of its superficiality and pretence. It points to the fact that everything is not as it often tries to be. Dante's artistic reflection is based on a wide range of thematic motifs and an undeniable courage to transcend the conventions and boundaries of ordinary artistic endeavour. He applies the readymade to his artistic processes, and consequently creates his works from carefully selected but pre-existing objects and artefacts.
In your art, provocation and black humour play a key role. How do you choose the themes and motifs for your works?
It wasn't immediate, but at a certain stage in my life I allowed myself anything in art that wasn't outside my morals. I told myself that I wouldn't shy away from anything as long as I had absolute faith in the quality of the work, even at the cost of being thought a fool. But as Dalí said, the difference between me and a fool is that I am not a fool. (laughs) It actually makes me sad to see how few artists are really free and prefer to play the game safely. Who else is supposed to be free in society but artists? Black humour for me is a symbol of freedom of speech. If society starts to restrict art and humor, it all goes down the drain quickly. That's why it's important to constantly try and remind people of that. Provocation in art seems to me to be an elementary component, because in the end it means that something is interesting. The most interesting things almost never happen halfway through. But it has to be done with style. It's a good way to draw the viewer in and get their attention, but then the artist has to tell them something else too, or the work fails. I also find it terribly alibistic how some artists, who obviously want to provoke, then don't admit to it and act like it was almost an accident. There's also another thing about provocative works - they're just terrible fun to make. But I also love completely innocuous works that maybe just draw attention to some small phenomenon observed in everyday life. Plus, I think decorativeness and beauty are also sufficient reasons to create something.
What is your personal interpretation of decadence? What sense do you see in exploring it in the context of the contemporary world?
Decadence is such an overused term that it actually puts me off completely. Anything can be decadent, like an overly crowded sandwich. I tend to leave the exploration and definition of decadence to others. Everyday life is so steeped in it that we hardly notice it anymore. But it's interesting how much it suddenly hurts us when we are confined in it for a while.
There are many different artistic techniques and styles in your work. Do you create such different works simultaneously or rather in periods?
There are two basic positions in my work: one more pop art and one more melancholic. The latter I showed for example last year during the Prostějov Contemporary Art Festival, and the mix of both positions was on display at the (A)void Gallery on the Prague Embankment, where I presented an exhibition called EVIL during October. The great difference between the works is a consequence of the fact that I allowed myself to create whatever work I believe in. I don't think too much about how it will fit in with my other works. The fact that they have the same author creates the context anyway. At first glance, my portfolio might appear to be the work of multiple artists, but a more experienced eye will find connections between the pieces, I think. I've taken the hardest approach for myself, where most of the works don't build on each other, so I have to constantly come up with new concepts. But I don't think every artist should feel obliged to proceed in this way. I admire the manic obsession of Ono Kawara, for example, but I don't think I'd be too eager for his next show. (laughs) There's a difference between coming across a new artist and being inundated with their life's work, and following them for a long time. In the former case, you're spilling his life's work on you and you're immersed in his world. Conversely, when you've been familiar with an artist's work for a long time, you tend to judge each new work on its own and much more critically. What previously seemed like an avalanche of ideas can then give the impression of repetition or "ripping oneself off" - a term I hate.
How do you choose the titles of your work?
When I look at the titles of my work from when I was in college, it's clear that it's the work of a younger artist. There's a certain fatalism and an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Nowadays I prefer the opposite approach - I name the works in a dry or even descriptive way. For example, Jordan Wolfson does this, naming his most famous works in the style of "Female Figure" or "Body Scuplture". Yet they are far from boring. I think the stronger the work, the less it needs the help of a title. Trying to name a strong work with a strong title, which often requires a twist, can only hurt the work. I used this approach with my stained glass piece, which depicts an ultrasound image of a baby that we then had an abortion with. I decided to leave it unnamed, which I never do, because the baby remained unnamed as well.
You studied in the Painting Studio at the UMPRUM in Prague. What impact did the academic experience have on your current work?
Before UMPRUM, I studied for three years at the Art & Design Institute. Overall, those seven years at art colleges were incredibly beneficial for me. Doing art without school is definitely possible, but the hard hitting that you get in freshman year is priceless. I've knocked out about half of my portfolio that way myself. It's true, though, that in my first year at UMPRUM I was told that I was going there for little use, because I wasn't really listening to anyone anyway. I think it's important to think about the criticisms of your work, but in the end, do it your way anyway. At the same time, one shouldn't get swept away by the crowd, which often thinks in a rather uniform way at art schools. I very much appreciate the freedom we had at UMPRUM regarding our own work. We weren't given any assignments, because nobody would give them to us after school. At the Art & Design Institute it was a bit different - for example, Miloš Šejn and I did various activities in the studio, for example he gave us the task of looking at our reflection in the mirror for an hour straight.
In October you gave a guided tour of the current exhibition Flotsam & Jetsam by British artist Jake Chapman at the Telegraph Gallery. He and his brother Dinos were part of the famous Young British Artists, an art group that caused a stir with its critique of social values and provocations linked to references to historical events. What influence has the work of the YBAs had on you, both in terms of aesthetics and subject matter?
The YBAs are so fundamental to me that I basically can't imagine what my life would be like if they didn't exist. When I was 16 or 17, I became more interested in the contemporary art world, which attracted me because of its seeming endlessness. The YBAs were the first artists I was completely enthralled by, and they are still one of my favorite parts of art history. The defining thing for me was that, like the musicians, thanks to punk, I figured I could do this too. Part of it was because their art wasn't so much based on craft, but more on ideas. I felt like I understood them, that I would solve the same aesthetic and practical problems in a similar way. For example, the work in series that I still do today. Their time was very different from ours - there was no internet and there were few channels on TV, so when you became famous, you were really famous. Today, every yoga instructor has a million followers on Instagram, and yet in real life she's almost anonymous.
What was your first impression of the exhibition and which moments or works stood out to you the most?
I am very happy about this exhibition, and I was even more pleased to be offered a guided tour followed by a presentation of my own work and a workshop. The exhibition is great and meets all the hallmarks of Chapman's work, especially their overwhelming cynicism with a dash of anti-humanism. The stand out pieces here are those that appear to be African, yet were carved in London or purchased on Amazon by the artist himself. Chapman says they are "wasps pretending to be wasps" - they look important and full of meaning, but in reality they are completely empty. My biggest favourites in the show are a large painting of a baby born to a drug addict, jokingly titled Self Portrait, and Accelerate or Die, which is the centrepiece of the whole exhibition - it's two mannequins sitting in a car, doomed to repeated suicide by exhaust fumes. It references Chapman's documentary of the same name about accelerationism, which I definitely recommend watching. I was also amused by the use of the plastic straw as a symbol of evil, a modern-day swastika. The political climate in the world has shifted a lot, and so similarly controversial but brilliant artists like the Chapmans have to rely more and more on private institutions. I'm glad that in this country, of all places, there is support for them.
Are there particular works by the Chapman Brothers that have inspired your own work?
In general, I'm inspired by what they stand for and represent in art. But I don't think I could find a direct correlation between any of my specific works and theirs. I'm most attracted to their iconoclasm, i.e. the desecration of other people's images. But I'm afraid that in this respect their painting on the original images of Adolf Hitler is unsurpassable. You can't do any better in this genre, it's an absolute version of itself. That's the advantage of the older artists - they've managed to keep a lot of things to themselves, and then the younger artists have to zigzag between what's already taken by someone and what's not yet. And it goes on and on like that. I was very much inspired by a personal encounter with Jake himself; we first met at a discussion about Kafka at DOX, and until then we had only known each other a little bit through Instagram. Along with others, we drank a lot, ended up at Cross and I have to say I haven't experienced such an energetic party in a long time. Jake and I teased each other in various ways besides conversation, and we ended up getting into a fight. Jake punched me where he could with his fists, and I wedged myself against the seat, protecting my face with my elbows and kicking him where I could in return. After a while, we stopped and shook hands, so it was all good. They say "don't meet your heroes" but I have to say that didn't apply in this case, and in a way it couldn't have gone any better! (Laughs) We ended up at Kintera's studio, which was also a blast. I lived off that evening for a week.
