Signal II

We’re disappearing from the world. We lose our bodies and abandon our senses. We observe ourselves from somewhere high and far away through theories, models, networks, maps, screens, projectors, camera systems and virtual reality. We cease to be a part of the lived, experienced world as its subject, but gradually become just one of its objects, things that can be examined, dissected, defined, and analyzed, but which lose the ability to examine. We believe that we have all the secrets of the world within our grasp, but its essence is becoming increasingly remote and obscure. We know everything, but we understand nothing.

Similarly, we relate to the world of fine art or to the world of art in general. We complain that art has become inaccessible, complex, detached from everyday problems, that it is difficult to understand, difficult to live with. Instead of seeing art in its human dimension again, instead of standing in front of it in ecstasy and attentively engaging with it, instead of becoming part of it, of participating in this world with it and projecting our own life experiences into it, instead of all this we scan and analyze it, sort it, dissect it, copy it, share it, photograph it, and show it off. Yet we all believe that it is this kind of action that will let us into the art world, that all this will sooner or later provide us with something like an instruction manual, a ticket, a key.

But the more we talk about art, the less we talk to it. We engage in incomprehensible monologues in the vicinity of works of art, and we never cease to be amazed that we do not receive meaningful answers to obscure questions. Yet all we really need is to meet art face to face and talk to it in its own language, our own language. 

We’re disappearing from the world. This exhibition tries to follow one of the aspects of this disappearance. It is also the second display of contemporary art from the collection of Robert Runták in the Telegraph Gallery.

LIST OF AUTHORS

Josef Achrer, Ondřej Basjuk, Jaroslava Brychtová, Jiří Černický, Dalibor David, Petr Dub, Vladimír Houdek, Krištof Kintera, Sabina Knetlová, Jiří Kornatovský, Eva Koťátková, Jiří Kovanda, Stanislav Libenský, Břetislav Malý, Hynek Martinec, Michaela Maupicová, Josef Mladějovský, Ivan Pinkava, Daniel Pitín, Jan Poupě, Ondřej Přibyl, Václav Stratil, Ira Svobodová, Robert Šalanda, Jakub Tomáš, Zdeněk Trs, Vladimír Véla

Curated by Pavel Dvořák