ETell me your name!

Jiří David

:dvorak sec contemporary

If you have to choose between better, even though it brings you no profit or worse, which will benefit you, decide correctly.

Arnošt Lustig

Hardened crusts of colors, artificial sedimented rocks, sudden layers of chaos, ambiguous emergence of trying to force its way through fragments, but also clean, shining blocks from the hand of an axe. Tattooed skin, flea markets, burnt frames, glass beads, melancholy attempted by panic, anxiety, yet only the undying night waiting for the light and reasons. Demon of memories that I cannot express, as they persist the sight, before words, the language, before its own identity. Fear. Autonomy of industrial colours in cans, their chemical reactions, consistency, slow, its very slow calcification, that often forces me to its tearing. I admire their spatial compactness, exapansivity. Live... You are what you are... I manipulate by identifying objectivity, full of own obscurity, scorn and doubt, aware of the necessity of transcendence.

Jiří David 2011

Texts: Martin Dostál and Jiří David

Translation: Tera Semenov

Editor: Olga dvorak

Conception of catalogue: Martin Dostál

Graphic Design: Karel Kerlický & Martin Dostál

Photos: Dušan Šimánek

Published by: KANT 2011 and dvorak sec contemporary

ISBN: 978-80-7437-049-6

dvorak sec contemporary

Dlouhá 5, Prague 1, 110 00, Czech Republic

Tel. +420 604 204 653

info@dvoraksec.com

www.dvoraksec.com

© 2011 dvorak sec contemporary

© 2011 kant publishers

Martin Dostál

In art, there is always something that outlives its time and its creators. A lot of it, however, falls into cracks of oblivion. Jiří David does

not create for the afterlife, but solely for the now. Presented here are his most recent works of his painted series, which he painted in the

last two years at his new studio in Zbraslav. For sometime now Jiri David has kept these works hidden from the inquisitive, so he could

show the work all at once, after its completion. The work consists of a series of paintings of medium and large formats, and with that also

two works, that are something of a painting-relief-object, and yet still again I realize, how Jiri David is a contemporary artist, from which

many aspects will live on to eternity.

Sometimes it seems that all of Jiří David‘s work in its own way is a memory and reflection of the future. With its volatile uncertainty, its con-

fusion, with overlapping themes and meanings, its calming chaos, its provocative aestheticism, its timelessness for me, makes it the quality

of the work it is today. It is the feeling and look of the work in which future archaeologists of art will condemn or refine to be known of our

time. This is also why his newest works are convoluted in a Davidovsky timely and timeless manner. He is focused and distracted, intimate

and impersonal, fragmented and integrated, authentic and derived. It seems to me that David’s visual concepts are a continuous process of

emergence and sometimes also dwindling, a single unique work that changes in the quiver of personal emotions and experience of revoke

and grief, social depression and compression. There are external reactions into ones human life, in which the actor has frequent attempts

of loss of conjunctions of personal and artistic integrity in the seemingly pragmatic behavior of our Czech and world history. Enervating

contrasts of the internal and the onlooker however, is the originating ground of David’s art that is of such tension to the breaking point of

conflict of the lived and aesthetic, because in the end everything ultimately melds into one.

Currently Jiří David, who despite in all manner of conceptual divergence to objects, installations, texts and photography is after all, pri-

marily a painter – as is his life choice since childhood, he created paintings, in which he tries to be fresh with attack but also immersed

with wise experience. His own experiences, which he does not allow to be pushed aside, distinctly integrates into his canvases. It is as if

David wanted to create an excellent part of his endless series of art, where he consolidates older happenings, so that he can make them

more inticing the next time. In his new collection of work in spite of his diversity there is a compact consisteny. In a way, it theoretically

and formally synthesizes and fragments his previous series of paintings, like those of Home, Brutal abstractions, paintings from the exhibi-

tion Laskavost in Gallery Špala from1995, or large-size format work presented at the Wannieck Gallery in 2007 and an associated two-part

publication entitled Do not go, leave and I will not remember, it is dangerous! But we should also take into consideration his Black and

White series from the years of 1986 and 1987, with a stylistic born development and fragmented layered painting, of which he came of after

his barbaric years. Of all the cycles of all of his work David bases his work so he is able to diverge to his up-to-date modern and original

compositions.

For this series, David concentrates mainly on the formal aspects of the composition, without losing its essence and meaning of focus.

Mostly abstract in nature, the paintings however reflect on Davids grounds, which is the shifting between the image of the norm, finding

the beauty in the aestheticized grotesque and exploring the potential and power of the painted image. David experiments with different

techniques, the types of colours, exploring neo-modernist informalities, jumping to minimalist extremes, with great gusto compositions,

an element that runs through his work and many of his paintings from the late 80s. Assemblage is an essential feature and characteristic of

David’s work, they are polluted and aesthetically awe-inspiring, logically emerging from pseudo-informalities, its fragment materiliatiza-

tion defines and creates the texture of the painting. These assemblages form into objects and installations, changing back again to the two

dimensional form of image on canvas. The composition reveals itself out of its context, into a different or new form of contextualization.

At the same time, each of David’s paintings are a polemic of undertones of hidden ideas and meanings, a shift of aesthetics. This moment is

a fundamental part of David’s mentality, the questioning of “desecration” on the canvas appears already in one David’s juvenile paintings,

‘Under the sun’, 1967

David, like a true artist, is also a master of color. He is able to find the perfect tone and intensity, understanding its possibility in meaning

and connotation, he understands its limits, how to soften the color to black or white, diminish adverse shades, utilizing the “creaminess”of

the surface and drip-run effect of the paint. He avoids over-use in color, but it is still one of the integrating elements and features of his

work and style. It’s of no surpise that one of his key works in his new series are two works of which the canvases are filled with little paper

boxes of hardened paint. This not only shows that David searches for new and different ways of working and painting, but also through

„dead“color systematically arranged in rows of boxes – caskets revealing his life-skepticism of the possibilites of art. David moves between

the state of dreaming and awakening in his paintings. Processing personal experiences, memories, fragments of media and visual percep-

tions in the overlapping sequence of chaotic continuous flow, which is exposed. These fragments organize the painting, as evident traces

of these sensations, which perhaps adhere to the artists mind, but are still the basis of creation of the flesh of art. He organizes his motives

in an obsessive desire to paint in all rage of ways, with the vibrant medium that allows but also forbids. For us and for himself, for now

and for eternity.

There is always something important worth painting.

Pick me…I’m clean / Vyber si mě..Jsem čistý.., 200 x 200 cm, 2009-2011

Unsalable bitch / Neprodejná děvka, 180 x 200 cm, 2009-2011

A minute ago / Před minutou, 75 x 75 cm, 2009-2011Roll it over'n grease it down / Otoč se a namaž to, 185 x 185 cm, 2009-2011

TV News / TV zprávy, 100 x 70 cm, 2009-2011

Cosmic Utensils / Kosmické náčiní, 240 x 220 cm, 2009-2011

Feral / Neochočený, 219 x 222 cm, 2009-2011

Under Pressure / Pod tlakem, 100 x 75 cm, 2009-2011Mammography / Mamografie, 100 x 60 cm, 2009-2011

Gas Absorption / Absorpce plynu, 60 x 90 cm 2009-2011Separator / Oddělovač, 100 x 60 cm, 2009-2011

Close proximity / Nevýhodná blízkost, 195 x 180 cm, 2009-2011 Soap Titan / Mýdlo Titan, 90 x 70 cm, 2009-2011

Whopper / Nehorázná lež, 85 x 85 cm, 2009-2011 Double shrinkage / Dvojí smrštění, 100 x 100 cm, 2009-2011

Vain attempt / Marný pokus, 90 x 90 cm, 2009-2011Beauty is a French phony corruptio / Kráse je francouzská zkomolenína, 195 x 180 cm, 2009-2011

I am Your psychiatrist / Jsem váš psychiatr, 222 x 221 cm, 2009-2011

Don‘t jizz on the sofa / Nehoď semeno na pohovku, 220 x 246 cm, 2009-2011

Let it squirt II / Ať to stříká II, průměr 220 cm, 2009-2011Let it squirt I / Ať to stříká I, průměr 205 cm, 2009-2011

Writhe / Svíjet se, 200 x 180 cm, 2009-2011

Space Oddity / Prostor podivnosti, 70 x 70 cm, 2009-2011 Fame / Sláva, 60,5 x 65 cm, 2009-2011

The Man Who Sold The World / Muž který prodal svět, 85 x 100 cm, 2009-2011Where the remaining people ar / Tam kde jsou zbývající lidé, 219 x 222 cm, 2009-2011

Facing the sea / Obrácený k moři, 219 x 251 cm, 2009-2011

You are what you are / Jsi to co jsi, 60 x 100 cm, 2009-2011Completely empty / Úplně prázdný, 239 x 222 cm, 2009-2011

What remains / Co zbývá, 195 x 180 cm, 2009-2011

Before Glamour / Před půvabem, 210 x 281 cm, 2009-2011

Solo exhibition – selected2011 Řekni mi své jméno ( Tell Me Your Name ), dvorak sec contemporary,

Prague, Czech republic2010 Maadha Kai?, Madadayo! Galerie Paté patro, Praha , Czech republic2010 Revoluce, objekt ve veřejném prostoru Prahy, (Revolution, object in public

space Prague)2010 Exhibition is(no)t.. Salon Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw

(with Jiří Kovanda)Poland2010 Kohinoor – 15 min. movie, Cinema Mat, Praha, Czech republic2009 Předběžná retrospektiva, (Preliminary Retrospective), Galerie hlavního

města Prahy Předběžná retrospektiva, (Preliminary Retrospective), Moravská galerie

v Brně2009 Dotkni se mé hlavy (Touch my Head), Wyspianski 2000 pavilion Cracow,

Poland2008 Až peklo přemrzne (When Hell Freezes Over), Dominik Art Projects,

Krakow, Polsko2007-8 I do not remember, it is dangerous, Wannieck allery Brno, Czech Republic2007 object in public space Hůl pro nevidomé, Cane for Blind, Václavské nám.,

Wenceslas Square, Prague, Czech republic2006 Fifth Seal – Sacharov centrum, Moscow, Russia2003 Gallery FUTURA (with Annika Larsson) – Sober Minded, Prague, Czech

Republic2002 Gallery V. Špály, No Compassion, Prague, Czech Republic Heart on the Castle, public neon instalation, Prague, Czech Republic2001 The Glow, neon instalation in public space on the roof galerie Rudolfinum,

Prague, Czech Republic1997 Gallery Anita Neugebauer, „Meine Geissein“, Basel, Switzerland1996 „Hidden Image“, Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw, Poland1995 Gallery Rudolfinum, „Hidden Image“, Prague, Czech Republic Jack, Tilton Gallery „Hidden Image“, New York, USA1993 Gallery MXM, „One day exhibition“, Prague, Czech Republic1991 Forum Stadtpark Graz, Austria1990 Edition Arlelier, Graz, Austria1989 Riverside Studio London, United Kingdom

Group exhibitions – selected2011 Art on Lake, Budapest, Hungary Já, bezesporu (Undeniably me), Galerie Rudolfinum, Praha, Czech Republic 2010 Kašpar noci,(Caspar of the Night) galerie Futura, Praha, Czech Republic2009 Prague biennale 4, Praha, Czech republic2009 Czech Photography of the 20th century, Kunsthalle Bonn , Germany 2008 No Places, No Frontiers, Dominik Art project, Krakow, Poland2007-8 Form follows…Risk, Futura / Karlín Studios, Praha, Czech Republic2007 Prague Biennale, Praha, Czech republic2006-7 Galerie Futura- Chaplin Resident Fighter, Prague Czech republic2006 National Centre for Contemporary Arts, In time between Moscow,Russia2005 Prague Biennale 2, Prague, Czech Republic Berlin Photography Festival 2005 in Martin Groupius Bau (September till

November), Berlin, Germany2004 Je t’envisage, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland PHOTOESPAÑA2004 Madrid, España „The 10 Commandments“, The Hygiene Museum Dresden, Germany „About Face“, Hayward Gallery London, United Kingdom

Aeroplastics Gallery, Pulse of America, Brussels, Belgium PPULSE, BND studio, Milano, Italy2003 Neue Galery, exhibition Mars, Graz, Austria Gallery Künstler, München, Germany Exhibition „REAL by REEL“, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen, Hazenstraat

27, 1016 SM Amsterdam, Holland Mois de la Photo à Montréal-Maintenant, Montreal, Canada Face, photo exhibition (project from The Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne,

Switzerland2002 Aeroplastics Gallery, Wonderland, Brussels, Belgium2000 Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, „The Century of the Body: Photoworks,

Switzerland1999 Kunsthaus Muerz, „Anagrammatical Body“, Murzzuschlag, Austria1995 „On beauty“, gallery Regina, Moscow, Russia1993 Ludwig Forum, „Second Exit“, Aachen, Germany, „Coexistence of Art“, Biennale Venezia, Italy „Unfair“, Artelier Graz, Frankfurt, Köln, Germany1992 The Art Institute of Chicago, „Contemporary Photography from Czecho-

slovakia“1991 Aperto Venice Biennale, Italy 1990 Museum of 20th Century, „Zeichen im Fluss“, Vienna, Prague, Pecs, Zagreb

Walker Hill Art Centre, „Contemporary Czech Painting , Austria1989 Gallery Artists Space, „Metaphysical Vision Middle Europe“, New York, USA Kunstverein, Köln, Germany1987 Group „The Obstinates“ (first exhibrtion), Lidový dům, Prague,

Czechoslovakia1984–1989 (more non official exhibitions in Czechoslovakia, title – Confrontation)

BibliographyArticles – selectedJiří David, Frieze, text by Petr Fischer, November–December 2009A krtek’s notes from Prague Pt. 1, Frieze blog, text by Jörg HeiserJiři David Rust (Paintings 2006) AP Pleskot Gallery, Prague, 2006, Flash Art 08,

March–April, 2007, text V. ČechThe Portrait Now, National Portrait Gallery, London 2006Making Faces: The New Photographic Portrait, Thames & Hudson, London. 2006Art in America, issue September 2005, Richard Vine, Doismilecinco ecinco (Brazil) 2005Spike art Magazine (Austria), Noemi Smolik, 2005

BooksHidden Image, texts by Václav Bělohradský, Jacques Derrida, Martin Dostál,

Helena Kontová, Jana Ševčíková and Jiří Ševčík, KANT 1995Jiří David, texts by Jana Ševčíková, Jiří Ševčík and Jiří David, KANT 2001DAVID DAVID, texts by Martin Dostál and Jiří David, KANT 2002Inside Out, texts by Martin Dostál and Jiří David, KANT 2006Don‘t Leave, Go Away, texts by Martin Dostál, Jiří David and Noemi Smolik,

KANT 2007I don‘t remember, it is dangerous!, text by Martin Dostál, KANT 2007Jiří David – Nikdo jiný, zatím nic, Tranzit, 2008Preliminary Retrospective, texts by Martin Dostál, Noemi Smolik, Edith Jeřábková,

Jiří Přibáň and Marek Pokorný, Moravian Gallery in Brno, 2009

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