Exhibition Opening
Distorted Image. Chapters from the Beginnings of Video Art

You are warmly invited to the opening of the exhibition Distorted Image. Chapters from the Beginnings of Video Art, which will take place on Tuesday, 28 April, at 18:00 at the Brno House of Arts on Malinovského Square. The programme will include a performance by Peter Rónai – autoReverse 1, the interactive installation Televize Amalgam, and a concert by Pomalé prostředky. The space will also be open to visitors for their own experimentation and interaction.

Simultaneously, the exhibition Words of dalibor Chatrný will also be officially presented.

PROGRAMME

18:00 – Introduction of the exhibitions by the director of the Brno House of Arts, Terezie Petišková, together with curators Alena Pomajzlová and Lenka Dolanová
18:30 – Performance by Peter Rónai – autoReverse 1
18:45 – Televize Amalgam (Josef Daněk and Blahoslav Rozbořil)
19:00 – Exhibition talk of Words of Dalibor Chatrný with curator Alena Pomajzlová
19:30 – Exhibition talk of Distorted Image with curator Lenka Dolanová and participating artists
20:00 – Concert by Pomalé prostředky (Stanislav Filip and collaborators)
20:30 – Vernissage
22:00 – End of the event

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Exhibition Architecture: Kateřina Radakulan

The exhibition looks at the beginnings of video art in the former Czechoslovakia and in Poland and Hungary from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s. The selection of important events and artworks cannot be separated from the overall social and political context, which significantly determined artists’ access to technologies, the way they worked with video, and the possibilities for sharing their work. Using examples from these countries, the exhibition encourages visitors to search for differences as well as parallels and points of intersection.

In order to provide a full picture of the evolution of this art form, the exhibition includes experimental films, documentary records of performances and actions, and early works of animation. Another important component are independent video magazines on video cassettes that reported on politics and culture (examples include Originální Videojournal, Videomagazín Vokna, Videomagazín Karla Kyncla, and Infermental). Besides single-channel video, visitors can also see various video installations and video sculptures, many of which have only survived via secondary documentation of their existence.

The exhibition’s title is a reference to the deliberate as well as unintentional distortion and manipulation of images; to artists’ experimentation with analog and digital video, television signals, and the television set as an art object; and to the questioning of the image’s very ability to inform truthfully about reality. It also suggests that, from today’s perspective, it is difficult to provide a full picture of the history and evolution of video art. Original materials are difficult to gain access to, they are scattered throughout private and public collections, or they are in artists’ archives at various stages of digitization or still on historical recording media that is slowly deteriorating in attics and basements. Few institutions in the Czech Republic or other Central European countries are engaged in the collecting and storage of video art, and almost none is focused on video installation. The exhibiting of historical works raises questions related to the proper manner of their presentation and the extent to which they can be reconstructed or reproduced.

The exhibition pays special attention to the local context, as Brno played an important role in early video art. For instance, exhibition openings at the underground Galerie drogerie – Zlevněné zboží (Off-Price Drugstore Gallery, 1986–1989) included screenings of video portraits of the exhibiting artists. The “Na Květné” audiovisual center began operating at Brno University of Technology in the 1980s, and the Studio of Video and Multimedia Animation was founded at the university’s Faculty of Fine Arts under the guidance of Radek Pilař in 1992, followed by a media archive and multimedia laboratory with which Woody Vašulka was briefly associated as well. Brno in the 1990s also hosted the innovative Hi-Tech/Umění (Hi-Tech/Art) exhibitions.

The Czech Republic is represented at the exhibition by artists from Radek Pilař’s Obor Video art group (Lucie Svobodová, Petr Skala, Ivan Tatíček, etc.), various independent performance and action artists who worked with film and video (Lumír Hladík, Tomáš Ruller, Vladimír Ambroz, Miloš Šejn, Vladimír Havlík, Petr Váša and Marian Palla, Martin Zet, Jiří Černický, Jennifer DeFelice, Adéla Loučanská, etc.), the first generation of students of video art (Janka Vidová-Žáčková, Filip Cenek, Zdeněk Mezihorák, etc.), creators of video installations (Tomáš Ruller, Vladimír Ambroz, Jaroslav Vančát), and artists who worked in exile (Michael Bielický, Petr Vrána, Milan Kohout).

In Slovakia, one of the first artists to explore video art was Peter Rónai, whose conceptual approach (thanks to his time at the Faculty of Fine Arts) influenced a generation of Brno students as well. A conceptual approach also characterizes the works of Miroslav Nicz, while the art of Vladimír Havrilla reflects his origins in experimental film. The exhibition presents the art of Jana Želibská, who works with the image and the human body, from several perspectives, and a feminist approach can be found in the work of Ilona Németh as well.

In Poland, early video art was concentrated around Warsztat Formy Filmowej, a group founded by students from the Łódź Film School (e.g., Józef Robakowski, Wojciech Bruszewski, Zbigniew Rybczynski). Other circles of artists formed at the academies in Warsaw and Katowice. Thanks to relatively good access to technology, starting in the early 1970s they and many other artists engaged in an analysis of television signals and worked with the specific characteristics of the video image (e.g., Jolanta Marcolla, Izabella Gustowská, Anna Kutera, Grzegorz Zgraja).

 

In Hungary, an important source of support for film and for the development of video art was the Béla Balázs Studio. The exhibition includes works by various artists associated with this studio (e.g., Ágnes Háy, Gábor Bódy, Tibor Hajás), plus conceptual films by Dóra Maurer, a video installation by János Sugár, and documentation of television experiments by Károly Halász.

Some of the exhibited works have been provided on loan from institutions and individuals from the Czech Republic and abroad. Special thanks for expert advice and consultation: Katarína Rusnáková (SK), Łukasz Guzek and Tomasz Załuski (PL), Miklós Peternák and Simon Petri-Lukács (C³: Center for Culture & Communication, Budapest), František Zachoval (GMU, Hradec Králové), and Miloš Vojtěchovský (Vašulka Kitchen Brno).

The exhibition is being held under the auspices of Mayor of Brno Markéta Vaňková. 

Open Tuesday–Sunday from 10am to 6pm; extended hours on Wednesdays until 8pm.

Photo: Izabella Gustowska, Portret wielokrotny (Multiple Portrait), documentation of the video performance, Galeria Akumulatory 2, Poznań, 1985. Archive of the author