Viktor Takáč
25 Oct - 20 Dec 2013
VIKTOR TAKÁČ
Studio retrospektiv
25 October - 20 December 2013
Viktor Takáč (1982) graduated from the Intermedia Studio of Monumental Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (2012). He is holder of the Essl Award (2013) for contemporary artists; his works have been presented at a number of Czech and international exhibitions as well as at film festivals such as Karlovy Vary IFF, Festival of Animated Film in Olomouc etc.
Viktor Takáč has been dealing with new spatial forms of the video moving image on a long-term basis. The viewers‘experience of the linearity of the narrative as well as of the editing of temporal sequences of scenes is substituted by the combination of various fluencies of dollies and animation of static photographs. In his works, Takáč literally remodels and gradually (re)discovers the spatial forms found in his videos. His source material often includes documentary diary scenes and arranged studio situations designed for photorealistic record.
In the first room, a mark on the floor and the signs Left, Right, Back on three walls lead the visitors to the view of the gallery exit; the visitors go on as if backwards, passing a room with a curtain and a rotated room which can only be glanced in through a crack. At the end (which can also be interpreted as the beginning) of the exhibition, there is a dark room with the projection of the video Then Only Black.
Similarly to their subjects, the titles of the works employed to mark the first room, the curtain and the rotated room are derived from previous videos by Viktor Takáč as well; the compilation video Front, Back, Left, Right (2011) was filmed by Takáč in the very gallery space together with Michal Pěchouček in 2011; the curtain in the second room is “borrowed” from the video Back-Ward (2007) which was based on documentary footage and reconstructed passages through a cabaret tent. The room with a shifted partition (rotated space) is reminiscent of the video installation I’ll Be Right Back (2010) for the Pavilon Gallery.
The Retrospective Studio exhibition deals with the motive of imprints of earlier works by means of their sign character and shift in meaning, indicating the missing information through words and colour schemes, diverting the standard space of the gallery and covering it by a cabaret curtain. Takáč essentially points out the spatial permeability and repetition of meaning of the dispositions of some of his earlier works, while none of them has been exhibited in its original form. The apparent labyrinth of meaning is so abstracted that Takáč has managed to set up an exhibition by means of missing pieces of information, by the lack and loss of information, which is also proved by the single video present in the last room, Then Only Black, which deals with the individual indicated motives.
In case of Viktor Takáč’s exhibition, the word “retrospective” does not represent a means of recapitulation but, on the contrary, a surprising materialization of several of the artist’s earlier works, with Takáč reconstructing the spatial situations related to the concrete settings of his videos, including the very gallery. Rather than diaries, sketches or an early retrospective, the exhibition represents a process of revisiting the forms of Takáč’s works which have been opened a crack by the exhibition.
Martin Mazanec
Special thanks to Pavel Humhal. 2013
Studio retrospektiv
25 October - 20 December 2013
Viktor Takáč (1982) graduated from the Intermedia Studio of Monumental Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (2012). He is holder of the Essl Award (2013) for contemporary artists; his works have been presented at a number of Czech and international exhibitions as well as at film festivals such as Karlovy Vary IFF, Festival of Animated Film in Olomouc etc.
Viktor Takáč has been dealing with new spatial forms of the video moving image on a long-term basis. The viewers‘experience of the linearity of the narrative as well as of the editing of temporal sequences of scenes is substituted by the combination of various fluencies of dollies and animation of static photographs. In his works, Takáč literally remodels and gradually (re)discovers the spatial forms found in his videos. His source material often includes documentary diary scenes and arranged studio situations designed for photorealistic record.
In the first room, a mark on the floor and the signs Left, Right, Back on three walls lead the visitors to the view of the gallery exit; the visitors go on as if backwards, passing a room with a curtain and a rotated room which can only be glanced in through a crack. At the end (which can also be interpreted as the beginning) of the exhibition, there is a dark room with the projection of the video Then Only Black.
Similarly to their subjects, the titles of the works employed to mark the first room, the curtain and the rotated room are derived from previous videos by Viktor Takáč as well; the compilation video Front, Back, Left, Right (2011) was filmed by Takáč in the very gallery space together with Michal Pěchouček in 2011; the curtain in the second room is “borrowed” from the video Back-Ward (2007) which was based on documentary footage and reconstructed passages through a cabaret tent. The room with a shifted partition (rotated space) is reminiscent of the video installation I’ll Be Right Back (2010) for the Pavilon Gallery.
The Retrospective Studio exhibition deals with the motive of imprints of earlier works by means of their sign character and shift in meaning, indicating the missing information through words and colour schemes, diverting the standard space of the gallery and covering it by a cabaret curtain. Takáč essentially points out the spatial permeability and repetition of meaning of the dispositions of some of his earlier works, while none of them has been exhibited in its original form. The apparent labyrinth of meaning is so abstracted that Takáč has managed to set up an exhibition by means of missing pieces of information, by the lack and loss of information, which is also proved by the single video present in the last room, Then Only Black, which deals with the individual indicated motives.
In case of Viktor Takáč’s exhibition, the word “retrospective” does not represent a means of recapitulation but, on the contrary, a surprising materialization of several of the artist’s earlier works, with Takáč reconstructing the spatial situations related to the concrete settings of his videos, including the very gallery. Rather than diaries, sketches or an early retrospective, the exhibition represents a process of revisiting the forms of Takáč’s works which have been opened a crack by the exhibition.
Martin Mazanec
Special thanks to Pavel Humhal. 2013