Leading curator: Lucie Nováčková

ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF THE FUTURE
Curator: Monika Szűcsová, Kryštof Brůha, András Cséfalvay, Michal Mitro, Andrea Uváčiková

MYCELIUM
Curator: Kamila Ženatá
Jana Babincová, Jakub Grosz, Marie Ladrová, Lucie Nováčková, Kateřina Strach Tichá, Magdalena Šlajchová, Pavel Tichoň, Jiří Vyskočil, Pavla Zábranská, Kamila Ženatá

DISSONANCE
Curators: Kristýna Řeháčková a Daniela Šiandorová
Maroš Belák, Filip Hauer a Philipp Kolychev, Klaudie Hlavatá, Peter Kašpar

HYBRID LANDSCAPES
Julie Kopová

SPORES
Oleksandra Kasha Potrohosh

HIGH WATER
Curators: Vladimír Merta a Eva ŠindelářováDaniela Benešová, Barbora Burianová, Karolína Hanková, Jiří Jelínek, Hana Jurčíková, Kateřina Klapková, Tereza Kotounová, Tomáš Novotný, Kristýna Rubriciusová, Viktorie Součková, Michaela Šťastná, Eliška Thielová

„This exhibition act was created from an open call published during the last year. The curatorial projects, along with individual works that are being presented in the section Dissonance, were selected by a committee composed of the Pragovka for Art members, artists and other experts. We have received projects of very high quality focusing on the topics of digital footprint and morphic fields,” says Lucie Nováčková.

The core curatorial section of the exhibition – the mycelium / NEW FORM 2 project is unique in many aspects. In the spirit of the exhibit topic, Pragovka joined forces with the NOVA FORMA platform based in the former Gumárna (rubber factory) in Čáslav – the mycelium networks have connected and created a space for communication of two independent cultural spaces.

Mycelium formed through a process to which Kamila Ženatá invited other eight artists – Jana Babincová, Pavla Zábranská, Jakub Grosz, Marie Ladrová, Lucie Nováčková, Kateřina Strach Tichá, Magdalena Šlajchová, Pavel Tichoň – and one physicist – Jiří Vyskočil. The artists met over the last year, collaborated and attended the introductory symposium in Gumárna in Čáslav where they were introduced to the topic and each other’s work through a series of lectures and group activities. As part of the Multiplied Fields exhibition act, Mycelium examines the outputs of the human mind and their access to otherwise unattainable depths of consciousness in the works of Kamila Ženatá or Kateřina Strach Tichá. The viewers can look forward to the topics of artificial intelligence and mathematical models in the interactive installation titled Trip by Jakub Grosz and Jiří Vyskočil which translates a digital echo of an individual’s real movement in the space processed through artificial intelligence.

Kryštof Brůha, András Cséfalvay, Michal Mitro and Andrea Uváčiková presented in Monika Szűcsová’s curatorial section titled Alternative models of the future work using various media, conceptual and thought tools in the category of posthumanism as a meeting point between technological and human actors. They draw on familiar concepts of the human-machine symbiosis which are currently developed also in the context of software studies, their research reveals what it means to be human in the ecology of digital culture. It is an exploration of humanity as a digital subject that exists on two levels – the everyday lived reality and the level of the digital self.

The curatorial section titled Dissonanceled by Pragovka Gallery team members Kristýna Řeháčková and Daniela Šiandorová alludes to the capturing of shifting thoughts leading to a change in behaviour or attitudes and is inspired by Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance. A group of five artists who have applied through the open call – Klaudie Hlavatá, Maroš Belák, Peter Kašpar, Filip Hauer and Philipp Kolychev – present a search for a path between paintings, information and everyday life situations that remain imprinted in the human mind and take root in the shape of memories, forming our attitudes.

The entire gallery is permeated by Oleksandra Kasha Potrohosh’s mould and spores. They are small site-specific interventions made from textiles, intercepting the inner and outer spaces of the building. The spores connect with the space and allow the imagined exhibition field to organically grow into the outside world.

The Multiplied Fields exhibit is opened and closed by Julie Kopová’s painting series Hybrid Landscapes, which alludes to the aesthetic of chaotic systems and synesthesia, the hearing of an image and seeing of sound. The second part of the Hybrid Landscape series is characteristic for its disconcerting colourfulness referencing the unease of the contemporary world.

The selection of authors for the curatorial section High Water of Pragovka’s second exhibition act of 2022 introduces upcoming artists of the youngest generation into the visual art scene. The authors are connected by their studies at the atelier of New Media at the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen led by the academic painter Vladimír Merta who is not only a visual artist and the exhibition’s curator but also a Pragovka resident.