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Alena Boika
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commentary
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01.01.2007
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ABOUT BLACKNESSTHE DESTRUCTION OF THE GUELMAN GALLERY: THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
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| On October 21, 2006 a dozen thugs ransacked an exhibition of Alexander Jikia and the offices of the Guelman Gallery. Dressed in leather clothes and wearing no masks, they acted methodically and silently. They put the employees against the wall and took away their phones. The destruction took all of ten minutes. Gallery owner Marat Guelman called it a scare tactic. They did not steal anything, but… |
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Konstantin Akinsha
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commentary
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01.02.2006
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MOZART AND SALIERA
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| When I arrived in Vienna at the end of January the city was maniacally obsessed with three topics: Mozart, the anniversary of whose birth was turned into an unbearable avalanche of visual and audio kitsch, Klimt, whose paintings including the Golden Adele after years of international litigation had to be stripped off the walls of the Belvedere Gallery and returned to the rightful owners, and, of… |
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Spunk Seipel
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commentary
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01.01.2006
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TRENDS
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| The art scene is a strange, fickle thing. Almost every year a new trend is proclaimed as if wanting to outdo the tempo of the fashion world flux. The one admired is the one who first spots a new trend which has to be exploited as quickly as possible, and which we have to abandon before it becomes assimilated – in order not to become outdated. Those who yesterday were considered Becher’s proteges … |
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Tony Ozuna
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commentary
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01.01.2006
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ARTISTS IN WONDERLAND
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| A few years ago (Issue 3/2003), Umelec dedicated an issue to the theme, “The End of the Fairy Tale,” and in his essay “End of the Fairy Tale (between the fairy tale and Václav Stratil),” Jiří Ptáček took the English children’s story-teller Lewis Carroll to task for needing a magical mirror, the looking glass, to permit little Alice to enter a fairy tale land beyond her mundane reality.
Ptáček… |
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Jiří Ptáček
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commentary
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01.02.2005
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IBCA – PRAGUE BIENNALE 2: TWO VISITS AT ONCE
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| At the beginning of the year, Oliver Kielmayer, a Swiss publisher, arranged a meeting in the Umělec editorial office. He wanted some consultation. He had accepted an offer from the Prague National Gallery to curate the International Biennale of Contemporary Art (IBCA). He said he had no idea he would be entering a chaotic quarrel between the IBCA and Prague Biennale 2.
The IBCA is organized by… |
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Travis Jeppesen
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commentary
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01.02.2005
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ON THE EXPULSION OF THE FRIENDLESS WARRIOR
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| Why do we read art magazines? Sorry, but it’s a question that needs to be asked every now and then, as the answer seems to change over time according to one’s position, status, and relationship to the rest of the so-called art world, if such a world actually exists. Do we read in search of some projection of our selves on the glossy pages? To keep abreast of the latest trends so we don’t feel… |
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Gabriela Bukovinská-Kotíková
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commentary
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01.02.2005
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RESPONSE TO INSIDERS INC, AN ARTICLE WRITTEN BY JIŘÍ PTÁČEK (UMĚLEC 1/2005)
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| In Umělec magazine, Jiří Ptáček wrote a critical review of the Insiders exhibition, which took place in Brno in the House of the Lords of Kunštát at the beginning of the year, and then in the spring at the Futura gallery in Prague.1 The particularly panning tone in the review, and the article’s supporting arguments, are not particularly persuasive.
The curator of the Insiders exhibition, Pavlína… |
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Pavlína Fichta Čierna
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commentary
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01.01.2005
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THREE MEN FOR LIFE AND ME
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| The fourth man that I made sure to stay quiet about was my neighbor Kamil. It took us some time to get used to each other. He was a lonely old man, born in the town of Rosina. I was an outsider, in isolation brought on by motherhood. He would always get me angry as he’d lean out the window on his crutches asking audaciously where I was going and why.
He died this year, on a sunny day in May. He… |
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Maria Rus Bojanová
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commentary
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01.04.2004
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A NEW MUSEUM IN CEAUŞESCU’S PALACE
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| The October inauguration of Bucharest’s National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) may be the spark of vitality that will bring Romanian artistic society away from its transitional struggle. Situated in the east wing of Ceauşescu’s palace, the museum is huge. Although it occupies only 4% of the building which, with 400,000 m2, is the largest in the world, second only to the Pentagon, it spans… |
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Jiří Ptáček
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commentary
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01.04.2004
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REVOLUTION IN ROMANIA
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| The National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest lies in a bizarre place. The memory of one of the biggest architectonical eccentricities of late communism, Ceauşescu’s palace, House of the People can not be so easily erased. Even when a democratic parliament moves in there from one side and the museum of contemporary art from the other, its genius loci breathes down at you right at… |
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New book by I.M.Jirous in English at our online bookshop.