Real Time

I think that what was similar in mine and my  fathers artistic attitude was the ambition and desire to avoid epigone and imitation. Guided by this attitude, I have always been very careful that my work was not too close to his work, and for a very long time both the content and the form of my work were completely different.

However, it so happened that at some point, unexpectedly, our paths began to approach each other. I remember this moment, I received it as a warning signal. However, my then slightly more mature age meant that instead of protesting or starting to look for other solutions, I began to observe this process.

The idea of ​​a joint exhibition appeared a few years ago, we knew it was to be an event about something important, perhaps rarely present in today’s art. We talked a lot about it, but it was difficult for us to define it precisely, capture it in some coherent statement…When we had the date of the exhibition and we planned to start intensive work on it, I suddenly was left alone … After some time I asked myself whether if in this the situation makes sense to continue the entire project, because it was supposed to be a symbiotic exhibition, intertwining two personalities, having in mind the relationship that united us and mutual trust, I decided to take full responsibility in the hope that the co-author would identify with the effects.

I had some information about what my father wanted to achieve, but I didn’t know too many details. I had to try to recreate a thought process and even be a detective. Before his death, my father asked me to help him carry out paintings out of the shed, in which they spent almost 20 years.

He revealed to me that he intends to paint something on the surface of those paintings, creating, as he puts it a kind of palimpsest. He did not manage to do it, but I decided to pull out these works and have a look at them. It turned out that the paintings which I practically did not know, although I may have seen them briefly in the 90s, are very interesting. I found there, among others 3 paintings with dimensions of 200/130 cm. Two of them were described on the back and formed a diptych, while the third one did not have any description. After my father’s death, I talked with gallery curator Ola, who told me that my father mentioned to her that he had a 2 by 4 meter painting that he would like to show at the exhibition. I have never seen such a large scale work of my father and I have never heard anything about it. I returned to the paintings from the shed and it became clear to me that three paintings of which two were once a diptych were to be put together. Almost certainly, they were also to be repainted in some way. At this exhibition I show these and all other paintings from the shed as I found them there. One triptych was pulled out for an exhibition in the gallery Academy Salon in 2015, the others probably have never been shown in public, although I am not 100% sure here. The exhibition of my father’s works is completed by a film (probably the only one he has ever done for artistic purposes) and newer works where copper was used, material also important in my work.

My contribution to the exhibition consists of a triptych created with the help of electric cables and graphite powder, the work was presented two years ago in gallery XX1, was part of the exhibition entitled DUO. Just like the film, which is supposed to constitute a counterpoint of the entire exhibition, an alien element, ideologically and formally, but in my opinion somehow necessary. The essential element, however, is a new painting installation work created using white putty.

The elements that make up this part of the exhibition were mostly created while my father was still alive, then in my imagination and intentions they were talking about something a little different than today. At that time, the important aspect was time and the artistic process, how these two things combine, but I also thought about ecology, which was extremely important for my father, I wanted to somehow link ideologically to these concepts, especially because this topic returns lately with great strength. While creating these works, I was thinking, for example, about the process of decomposing plastic in the oceans, as well as about Guyi, a giant electric equipment landfill site in China … Today, the meaning of work is somewhat different, inevitably it became more personal.

When building this exhibition, I was primarily thinking about the matter of our paintings: convexity and concavity, roughness and smoothness, shine and dullness, heaviness and lightness, light and darkness. These concepts were crucial for me when composing an exhibition in this space.