Gallery 1 \/ 14. 9. 2023 \u2014 25. 11. 2023<\/p>\n
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Artist: Jan Merta<\/strong> \nThe city of \u00dast\u00ed nad Labem is often viewed as having no significant influence on the development of contemporary art, but, closer examination many interesting connections that, at the very least, challenge this notion. Jan Merta, one of the key figures of contemporary Czech painting, was born in 1952, and his story illustrates how, both in the past and present, this city situated on the cultural periphery has provided important impulses for the artistic growth of undeniably creative personalities and has thus helped shape the greater art scene in general. The exhibition Lidov\u00e1 \u0161kola um\u011bn\u00ed<\/strong>, which is being hosted by the \u00dast\u00ed nad Labem House of Arts, is based on memories from the artist\u2019s adolescence, a period of time spanning from 1966 to 1972, during which he lived in the city, as well as from frequent visits with his parents, who lived here too until 1989, as Jan\u2019s father, Hynek Merta, was as a pastor in the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren.<\/p>\n Yet references to a past embedded deeply within the creases of the \u00dast\u00ed landscape constitute only the initiating concept of an exhibition interwoven with reflections of current events. It opens with several juvenile paintings done by Merta in \u00dast\u00ed nad Labem and a small set of photographs by Luk\u00e1\u0161 Jasansk\u00fd and Martin Pol\u00e1k documenting Merta\u2019s \u00dast\u00ed realities. We encounter works inspired by his family\u2019s background, environmental concerns, and, last but not least, the madness of Russia\u2019s ongoing brutalization of Ukraine. Although the more recent conflicts of the contemporary world, which Merta attempts to confront with focused contemplation fixed in the lines, planes, and depths of his paintings, might at first seem to be distant from his upbringing in \u00dast\u00ed nad Labem, it soon becomes evident that the opposite is true. Perhaps the strongest continuity bridging these two periods of Merta\u2019s life emerges in a pair of works whose shared central motif takes the form of an unstable spherical object. In the small drawing on paper called Dream<\/strong> (1970), the object rests on a platform of delicate drapery, whereas in the monumental painting Dream of Democracy<\/strong> (2017\u20132023) it is perched upon a melting block of ice. Completed especially for the present exhibition, this programmatic painting of impending apocalyptic environmental and social destruction captures the artist\u2019s meditation on the repeated failures of human civilization, conjuring the motif of the sketch from his youth as if reliving his experiences with the environmental exploitation of the Sudetenland, shrouded as they often were in the suffocating toxic mists wafting across the Elbe Valley.<\/p>\n Likewise, the intimate painting Mobilization<\/strong> (Postsuprematic Breakdown of Atonement Cross) from 2022, which juxtaposes the legacy of Russian avant-garde art against the brutality of the war that Russia is waging against a kindred nation, may evoke a similar generational disillusionment, one that was present in the atmosphere of the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, which Merta experienced during his years in \u00dast\u00ed. Committed in the truest sense and with Merta\u2019s characteristic dedication to expressing socially relevant themes, the canvases in As is typical of Jan Merta, the selection of paintings included in the exhibition can be seen as the creation of a story from individual elements \u2013 specific canvases, drawings, objects \u2013 so that his sensitive yet uncompromising commentary on what he is currently experiencing, both in the intimacy of his own life and in the rapid flow of the surrounding world, is revealed to the viewer.<\/p>\n Michal Kole\u010dek \u2014 Curator<\/p>\n \u2192 invitation<\/a> Gallery 1 \/ 14. 9. 2023 \u2014 25. 11. 2023 Artist: Jan Merta Curator: Michal Kole\u010dek The city of \u00dast\u00ed nad Labem is often viewed as having no significant influence on the development of contemporary art, but, closer examination many interesting connections that, at the very least, challenge this notion. Jan Merta, one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exhbition","category-archive"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.duul.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.duul.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.duul.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.duul.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.duul.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23586"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.duul.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23789,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.duul.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23586\/revisions\/23789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.duul.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.duul.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.duul.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCurator: Michal Kole\u010dek<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nthe exhibition at the \u00dast\u00ed nad Labem House of Arts are complemented with introspective portraits of family members, again a deep connection to the artist\u2019s memories of his days in \u00dast\u00ed (Self-Portrait with a Military Rank<\/strong>, 1997\u20132006; Tom<\/strong>, 2007\u20132008).<\/p>\n
\n\u2192 press release<\/a>
\n\u2192 poster<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"