Tomáš Ruller
PERFORM-MADE / Resistant Moments

The retrospective exhibition of an important exponent of action art and, also, one of the first creators of video art, Tomáš Ruller, is held on the occasion of his special anniversary. In a comprehensive yet selective manner the exhibition will present the body of the artist’s oeuvre from 1974 (his first performance Along the Way) to the present.
The work of Tomáš Ruller is from a great part based on precise, carefully though out plans and scripts, as well as on painstakingly recorded documentation which takes on many forms: from simple photographic documentation of the events from the early period when high-quality reproduction technology was virtually inaccessible in artistic circles to very sophisticated forms of digital recordings and postproductions from the recent period. The different aspects of the current form of Ruller’s works invite us to think about the possibilities of documentation, postproduction, archiving, presentation and re-presentation of works from the field of action art. The exhibition project is a collaboration with Prague City Gallery and will feature an exhibition in two parts separated in space and time structured with regard to the basic aspects of the documentation of Ruller’s work in action art: its centre of gravity will be in the area of static image / photographic documentation / material relicts – in the House of Arts in Brno – and the other with an accent on moving image and excursions to new media and video art – in the Prague City Gallery. The Brno exhibition will be built around relicts of events in the form of preserved objects, photographic documentation and accounts of witnesses providing evidence of the situation and the social impact of Ruller’s individual performances and in general the role of action art and its impact on the circle of the unofficial scene (or directly the dissent) during the period of totality.

The exhibition is held under the auspices of Mr Petr Vokřál, Mayor of the City of Brno.