Adam Novotník and Adam Hudec: A Nightmare Turned into a Dream

Address
Galerie Vltavská

underground C – Vltavská

The viability and value of an architectural work is often assessed by its ability to “stay pure”, which always means destroying any form of life that emerges on the building’s surface. That’s why urban surfaces are treated with paints and coatings that prevent the formation of this organic patina. The aim of the site-specific installation is to celebrate the phenomenon of bio-patina, and to reject the usual patterns where architecture only serves the human needs, suppressing all other forms of life. The installation demonstrates that the bio-patina – a thin layer of cyanobacteria, algae, fungi and moss that has formed on the walls of the Vltavská staircase – is able to absorb toxic substances from the environment, for example the traffic-generated pollution from the nearby city highway. How would the city look like if we support, rather than suppress, the biogenic growth on architecture?

The project expands from the Vltavská area, and pictures the adjacent city highway as the natural habitat of bio-patina, using the vast road surface to eliminate its negative impact on the local ecosystem. The evocative idea of the transformation of the passive highway surface into an active habitat is a utopian provocation – the infrastructure would become meta-structure. A nightmare turned into a dream, such as the constantly forming, unwanted and regularly removed layer of bio-patina on the staircase of the Vltavská station…

Adam Hudec is a researcher, architect and activist from Slovakia, living and working in Vienna. His research is based on the intersection of science, art and architecture, where interdisciplinarity became a tool that enables the research of hidden or ignored anomalies. His project were published internationally on various exhibitions, including the Bi-City Biennale in Shenzhen and BIO26 Biennale in Ljubljana. Since 2019, his activities are represented by the Dust Institute, Vienna-based research platform co-founded by Adam Hudec. At present, he’s working on the dissertation “Epidermitecture” at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna; this dissertation is one of the starting points for the Vltavská installation. The Epidermitecture project is led by professor of architecture Michelle Howard and professor of geomicrobiology Katja Sterflinger of the same university; the latter is also the author of microscopic representations of bio-patina on the installation. The theoretical background of the project was created in cooperation with curator Beatrice Zaidenberg.

Adam Novotník, a Prague-based architect, has been long investigating the overlaps of architecture in other scientific and artistic disciplines. He then uses the new knowledge in experimental projects, including the “MECHanization of the City Highway”, another starting point for “A Nightmare Turned into a Dream”. The project suggests a solution to the hot issue of the Prague city highway – merging on utopian dreams but pretty attractive for the audience, which is forced to stop and think the issues over. Mr. Novotník’s other research topics include parametric projects, virtual reality and speculative architecture. His projects, often with visionary qualities, are exhibited in Czechia and abroad. Examples include Baltic Sea Hypoxia, a project investigating the dead zones in the Baltic Sea, presented at the Architectural Biennale in Tallinn, or the Virtual Academy concept, awarded by the Czech Chamber of Architects. This year, he founded the Moloko.Studio that will represent his activities in the future.

Previous Future

Address
Lobby of Anděl station, metro B / Ženské domovy

Admission

free

Author of concept: Adam Tureček
Curators: Anna Švarc, Marie Foltýnová

The future we still remember. A future that didn’t happen. A future that has grown old.

The idea of this exhibition is to provide the passing viewer with a different perspective on the materials and the works of art, through sci-fi and futuristic visions of the Prague metro.

The Prague metro – especially the part built before 1989 – contains elements that resemble various mysterious artefacts from the future, from another dimension or left behind by other civilisations. These elements are works of art; architecture or parts thereof. The exhibition is installed in a showcase in the lobby of the Anděl metro station – the Na Knížecí exit.

It offers several perceptual and optically mutually-interconnected or overlapping layers or plans. The authentic layer, or reality, is formed by historical photographs and spatial objects. These are authentic materials from the Prague metro, construction parts and architectural prefabricated parts, parts of artworks and interior accessories. The metro tiles, made from ceramic, glass, and stone, which every passenger passes daily on their way to work, school, or home, barely perceiving their aesthetic significance, gain a new dimension and value seen from a new perspective thanks to an associative layer – a distinctive graphic intervention in a light playful illustrative line.

The last layer of information consists of the labels of the exhibited objects, which will help viewers to orient themselves in time and space.

MINULÁ BUDOUCNOST-PREVIOUS FUTURE - tisk (102 of 102)

MINULÁ BUDOUCNOST-PREVIOUS FUTURE - web (27 of 102)

MINULÁ BUDOUCNOST-PREVIOUS FUTURE - web (93 of 102)

MINULÁ BUDOUCNOST-PREVIOUS FUTURE - web (16 of 102)

MINULÁ BUDOUCNOST-PREVIOUS FUTURE - web (97 of 102)

Stone Treasures from Prague Gardens

Address
GHMP Zámek Troja
U Trojského zámku 1/4
170 00 Prague 7
Map

Barrier-free entrance: basement and ground floor.

Open
Tue-Thu 10 am – 6 pm
Fri 1–6 pm
Sat-Sun 10 am – 6 pm

Admission

full 150 CZK
reduced 60 CZK

Curator: Marie Foltýnová

Artistic decoration and minor architectural pieces formed an integral part of the historical gardens of Prague. These artworks, exposed to the vagaries of the weather for decades, gradually disappeared from the gardens; they were either destroyed irretrievably or had to be replaced by copies. Saved original sculptures and architectural elements were stored in the depositories of the Prague City Gallery.

view into the exhibition Stone Treasures from Prague Gardens, Troja Château, 2018. Photo by Jiří Thýn

These exhibits include stone fountains with figural motifs of Nereids and dolphins from Troja Château, found in the 1980s during the reconstruction of the château and its gardens. The exhibition also presents original sculptures from Vrtba Garden, a group of Chinese figures from the Cibulka landscape park, and Braun’s sculptures from the Portheimka villa.

Suška – Stones / Škoda – Objects

Address
GHMP Zámek Troja
U Trojského zámku 1/4
170 00 Prague 7
Map

Barrier-free entrance: basement and ground floor.

Open
Tue-Thu 10 am – 5 pm
Fri 1–5 pm
Sat-Sun 10 am – 5 pm

Admission

full 150 CZK
reduced 60 CZK

Curator: Magdalena Juříková

In the 2022 season, we again combine two artists who share many common themes based on interaction with space. As Michal Škoda creates works almost exclusively for the interior, Čestmír Suška gets a space in the gardens and in the orchard of Troja Château, composing some works specifically for the selected sites.

Michal Škoda, bn IV, 2020, mixed media, wood, 44,5×60×44 cm, courtesy of the artist

Michal Škoda works with maximally reduced shapes that expand via hybrid form in space and thus do not resemble classical/traditional stereometric formations. They look like objects derived from futuristic architecture, or boxes hiding some magical secret. In addition, he is extensively focused on drawing, a 2D expression of the spatial layouts observed in the objects. Alongside minimalist morphology, the use of black monochrome or the simple contrast of black and white is an important expressive component of his works.

Čestmír Suška often defines his work through material. Currently, he is standing firmly in a new phase, dealing with stone. His work with perforated cisterns is a thing of the past and the removing of a mass from a stone block represents a completely opposite sculptural procedure which not only requires craftsmanship and a flexible perception of the quality of the stone, but also that the original concept of the future work, the final product, must not be deviated from.

view to the exhibition Suška – Stones / Škoda – Objects, Troja Château, 2022, object of Čestmír Suška. Photo by Gabriel Urbánek

view to the exhibition Suška – Stones / Škoda – Objects, Troja Château, 2022, objects of Čestmír Suška. Photo by Gabriel Urbánek

view to the exhibition Suška – Stones / Škoda – Objects, Troja Château, 2022, object of Michal Škoda. Photo by Martin Polák

view to the exhibition Suška – Stones / Škoda – Objects, Troja Château, 2022, objects of Michal Škoda. Photo by Martin Polák

Markéta Magidová: That’s Not a Fairy, that’s a Mum

Address

Galerie Vltavská
Cascades near the Vltavská underground station

Curator: Karina Kottová

The exhibition by Markéta Magidová That’s Not a Fairy, That’s a Mum is a site-specific installation in the public space near the Vltavská underground station, the location of the fountain with the figural sculpture “Faun and Vltava” by Miroslav and Olga Hudeček from 1984. The author tells a new story of the mythological figures, and plays with their alternative social roles. The project was picked up by the jury of the open competition for the Galerie Vltavská project, created in the cooperation of the Prague City Gallery and Prague Public Transit Company as part of the program Art for the City for temporary art interventions.

The exhibition by Markéta Magidová in Galerie Vltavská is a direct response to the sculpture made by Olga Hudečková and Miroslav Hudeček, who designed the fountain “Faun a Vltava” in the 1980s, as part of the architecture of the Vltavská underground station. They depicted both characters in their mythological lightness, celebrating the stream of life. However, the Faun is freer than Vltava, sitting on the top with his flute, while Vltava holds the river rocks and lets the water wash over her, the water that brings the fountain to life. In her current work, Markéta Magidová attempts at shaking the trees of mythological archetypes and recent social and gender stereotypes, and present both Faun and Vltava in new constellations. In her large-scale digital images, placed next to the original sculpture, she replaces, for example, Faun’s flute with a baby milk bottle, and puts a baby into his arms so Vltava/mum can rest for a while and do whatever she might like – have fun, take a good night’s sleep, work, visit a spa resort etc. Other images of the author present Vltava and Faun in various family constellations, with sick or crying children, in joys and worries that shatter their archetypal unchanging roles and open the uneasy questions about the composition of a family, the roles of its members, and possible alternatives to traditional, often restrictive standards; these questions have gradually become more and more important as social and political issues.

One of Magidová’s images shows Vltava lying under a duvet made of waterlilies, looking like rootless existence, a bit like Ophelia just drowned. At this point, Vltava as the river and its personification as a woman mingle at its best. Women, or female principle in general, are often given qualities attributed to water: good memory, sensibility, flexibility, sensuality, or persisting strength. In the time when it’s (once more) necessary to fight for women’s rights, the alliance between water and female qualities is more than appropriate. Once the archetypes become real stories and natural elements are given the equal voice in the human community, we may approach them, empathize with them, and possibly look for ways towards a sustainable and considerable future.