Exhibit of the current paintings of Michal Rádl (b. 1967, Pardubice), a graduate of AVU (School of Classical Techniques, prof. Zdeněk Beran; School of Landscape Works, prof. František Hodonský; Intermedia School, prof. Milan Knížák). There will also be a presentation of the book "Between the Event and the Painting."
A word from the Artist
The exhibition consists of two independent units.
The first unit is created by landscape paintings from Southern and Eastern Czech Republic. Some were painted solely in the open-air, others were finished in the studio, still others are painted with the help of photography, and finally there are those, which were begun from photos in the studio and then finished outside. Which are which I don’t need to reveal. My ambition is to pick up a particular atmosphere, not to record a "transcription" of reality. I use the photograph as a sketch of a site, where I can’t stay longer, or if I’m not able to finish the painting due to bad light conditions. Also, for the sake of catching the fleeting atmosphere.
The other unit is the documentation of the project "Between action and painting". It is a part of my theses dating back to 1997. It’s presented by means of black and white prints. In this project, I focused, amongst other things, on the way to consider painting in the open air as an action, as a kind of happening of regularity. All the pictures were painted outside. They were unique pieces of art during their conception, because they were the part of the action.
The parallel presentation of the two units described above is not trying to give the impression of brilliantly mastered landscape paintings. I’m interested in the question whether paintings made by chance are any different from those which were made during the project. Of course the time gap plays a certain role, too. It is almost a decade dividing the two units. Moreover, I’ve moved to the countryside. If you have the woods in your back yard and don’t have to use any means of transport except for your own feet to reach them, it definitely changes your perception of the countryside.
The title of the exhibition paraphrases my diploma thesis, and is not a disparaging play on words. From today’s point of view I’ve reached the conclusion, that the theoretical aspects of this work are not the basic platform from which I can work any further. Thinking these ideas through to their consequences leads me to a creative perplexity. It might also be because in my theses I reached the very bounds of the artistic form.
The background I come from and which I still draw inspiration from is my experience from hiking trips with my friends (tramps, rock-climbers and others) outdoors. My leaning towards the 19th century references in my work, may have its source in those early wanderings in Czech (and Slovak) lands and the nights spent in the open air with my first loves. It was during my studies at secondary school and AVU. I was not just influenced by theoretical approaches and streams in art. Despite my academic degree, I perceive the pot and the palette as two equal cognitive signs of my own personality. I can’t see any contradiction between this and my graduating from The School of Intermedia Studies led by Milan Knížák. I didn’t dwell in the environment of Czech underground, but rather in the Czech "čundrground". I don’t want to make a myth of the Czech tramping and present it as a life-saving social outlet from the totalitarian days. I’m only just finding out now, that it still has values to offer.
If Joseph Beuys could camp on straw with a wild coyote in a New York gallery, then I can also, within the ranks of art, lay my sleeping bag under a rock brim in the Suché skály rocks in the Český Ráj.
This exhibition received the financial support of: Hotel Lesní dům, Jánské Lázně and Jan Chejn, Praha
