Pocket Variations at Gavu, Prague

Group show curated by Marek Meduna

2022









Participants: Matouš Kašpar, Barbora Lepší, Adam Vít, Sofie Tobiášová



The exhibition was originally intended to be titled “Handsome Serge.” However, over the course of nearly a year between its conception and realization, all participants mentally detached from the original name. Consciously or seduced by the dangerous whims of chance, they chose a new title: “Variations of the Pocket.” In doing so, the reference to beauty and the rather intriguing nod to the French New Wave partly disappear—at least for those who do not read this accompanying text and are content with just the exhibition and its name. The following paragraphs are an updated version of the essay included in the exhibition proposal.

The exhibition's original name was inspired by one of the first French New Wave films, Le Beau Serge, directed by Claude Chabrol in 1958. The film’s protagonist returns to his native village, trying to see it as it still exists in his memory. His effort clashes with a double transformation—of both himself and the village environment. The object of his nostalgia is ultimately denied to him, unreachable, becoming a subject of longing.

The exhibition engages with the theme of return—its practical impossibility—and with nostalgia on multiple levels. The exhibiting artists revisit the iconoclastic foundations of modern art. They are direct, raw, childlike, playful. One might recall the question posed by Roger M. Buergel and Ruth Noack: “Is modernity our antiquity?” The return to an imagined beginning has long been a subject of reflection in art history. After all, even the Neue Wilde and Zombie Formalists returned. This symbolic operation of returning is both a way to continue the tradition of modernism and to break away from it.

The emphasis on nostalgia also serves as a counter-reaction to the wild technological and communication shifts that characterize our current life situation. It is a subtle defiance of internet surveillance and the commerce of attention; a way to resist the demand for constant updates. It expresses a skeptical relativization of the mentoring activism of the Woke Generation, as well as of the expectations placed on individuals in the face of global existential challenges and oversimplified cultural judgments.

The reference to the French New Wave is, on the one hand, an intuitive and somewhat random choice. But it also carries meaning—an alignment with certain methods and stylistic devices. It reflects a similar interpretation of the social atmosphere, where one might, with a bit of exaggeration, say that climate change is the new Cold War. Young artists always operate with limited budgets—for exhibitions and for their works—which forces them, if inventive, to find new stylistic approaches, to revitalize worn-out aesthetics, to improvise, to embrace chance, to defamiliarize exhibition conventions. The feeling of being “out of breath” often proves to be fertile ground for unexpected artistic gain. Raw expressive tools, a certain clumsiness or carelessness, attention to neglected or peripheral subjects—these are often misinterpreted as disregard for the viewer, when in fact they are a form of respect.

The word “nostalgia” was first used in 1688 by the German physician Johannes Hofer as a diagnosis for the troubles of Swiss mercenaries returning home after long periods of foreign service. Similarly, many of the participating artists met abroad and have spent shorter or longer periods living, studying, or working outside their home country. Now they return to local troubles and to the contradictions between idealized visions and the always-disappointing reality of home—with its sticky tendrils of memories, of personal failures and fleeting happiness.

The exhibition is thus titled “Variations of the Pocket.” After all, we all reach into pockets—mostly our own, though the braver or more hardened among us may reach into others’. The shape of a pocket is felt, but usually unseen. The set of items carried in pockets can be defined by personal experience, but what about the pockets of the Big Other? From others’ pockets wafts the scent of mystery and danger. Pockets emptied and bare, pockets tailored to fit. A pocket-sized scale and a single space-time pocket.





Text by Marek Meduna



Press: 

https://kubaparis.com/submission/257873
https://blokmagazine.com/pocket-variations/