The Lost Path, Curator Petr Vaňous

 

“The pathless wilderness is silent… it somehow carries the feeling of infinity.” (Karel Čapek)

the collection Boží muka. The text was first published in the magazine Lumír in 1916. The same story was later chosen by the renowned Czech aesthetician Květoslav Chvatík for a demonstrative analysis using a structuralist analytical method. The Lost Path tells the story of two men who stray from the path and become lost in a forest at night. One of them experiences a moment of ecstatic insight—an instant illumination, a sudden understanding of the universe—yet he has no way of recording it. The certainty of this revelation disappears once the path is found again, and the man is left with skepticism. From the euphoria of that moment of certainty, nothing remains except a vague memory that it might have happened. 

The short story forms the conceptual framework for the selection of artists whose work touches upon the limits of human experience—toward a threshold where the certainties of reason can no longer be relied upon, and where the symbolic risk of “losing the path” emerges. Or rather, where things and their relationships may be understood differently than they appear under ordinary conditions and within conceptual definitions. The group of artists represented in the exhibition engages with forms of creation that work with meta-language—its activation as well as its disruption. Here, artistic practice becomes a form of repeated narration, a repetition whose rhythm gradually weakens the logic of an ordered world so that another dimension of experience may be heard—one for which a “language” is only just being sought. In Čapek’s story, the man who experiences this moment of rapture describes the state in the following way: “Now I cannot yet distinguish anything. You must experience truth as a feeling before it becomes a word. You must find yourself within it as in a space that leads nowhere but opens in all directions; for your thinking is only a path in one direction, like a corridor between walls. Your thought moves forward along one of many possible paths; but the single truth goes nowhere and aims nowhere—it stands like an expanse.”

The Schule building is located in an area where the resonance of the Catholic Christian tradition is strongly present. The project The Lost Path aims to perceive the site in a decontextualized way—as an allegorical zone from which cultural and civilizational phenomena characteristic of this border region emerge, renew themselves, and are continually reactivated. Here, myth intertwines with legend, history with folk storytelling, fairy tales, and ballads. Darkness meets light. Being lost meets enlightenment; hope meets skepticism.

All invited artists received Karel Čapek’s short story. Some responded directly to the text, while others approached it through looser, more casual paraphrases. In several cases, earlier works surfaced that resonate strongly with the theme. The exhibition thus becomes a relational network of meanings that intersect at nodal points while also diverging and separating within the boundaries of their own “expanse,” defined by the curatorial selection. We find ourselves in the midst of a never-ending narrative that has neither beginnings nor endings—only a continuous flow in which particular names and narrative frames change, while the underlying principle of storytelling, as the creation, reconstruction, and dissolution of symbols and meanings, persists across times, epochs, and civilizations. If we accept that in the beginning there was the word, what will be at the end? And again—what do these hypothetically defined beginnings and endings actually mean for us?    

Petr Vaňous

Dominik Běhal (1988) absolvoval v l. 2009 – 2015 Akademii výtvarných umění v Praze (Ateliér Malba III, Škola prof. Michaela Rittsteina; Ateliér Grafika II, prof. Vladimír Kokolia).  

Radka Bodzewicz (1991) absovovala v l. 2011 – 2017 Akademii výtvarného umění v Praze (Ateliér Grafika II, Škola prof. Vladimíra Kokolii; Ateliér Socha II, Škola prof. Jindřicha Zeithammla). V r. 2016 studijně pobývala na Robert Gordon University – Gray´s School of Art, Aberdeen. V r. 2018 se stala finalistou ceny Leinemann-Stiftung fur Bildung und Kunst Award. 

Peter Fabo (1983) absolvoval v l. 2004 – 2010 Vysokou školu uměleckoprůmyslovou v Praze (obor Fotofrafie, pod vedením Pavla Štechy; Ivana Pinkavy; Alexandry Vajd & Hynka Alta). V r. 2007 prošel v rámci VŠUP stáží v ateliéru Typografie. V r. 2007 studijně pobýval na Facultad de Bellas Artes de Granada ve Španělsku a v. 2009 na University of Art and Design, Cluj Napoca v Rumunsku. 

Markéta Korečková (1975) absolvovala v l. 1992 – 1999 Akademii výtvarných umění v Praze (Ateliér Socha II, prof. Karel Nepraš, prof. Jindřich Zeithamml; Ateliér intemediální tvorby, prof. Milan Knížák). V r. 1993 prošla stáží na Sommerakademie Salcburg u prof.L. Ewinga. V r. 2007 se stala finalistou Ceny 333 NG a ČEZ. 

Julia Koudela Hansen Löve (1975) absolvovala v l. 1995 – 2001 Akademii výtvarných umění v Praze (Ateliér Malba I, Škola prof. Jiřího Sopka). V l. 2001-2002 pokračovala ve studie na Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden v ateliéru malby a grafiky u profesora Hanse Petera Adamskiho. V l. 2002 – 2010 žila v Berlíně. V r. 2006 zde oddržela Stipendium der Käthe-Dorsch-Stiftung, Berlín.

Matěj Lipavský (1985) absolvoval v l. 2004 – 2010 Akademii výtvarných umění v Praze (Ateliér Malba I, Škola prof. Jiřího Sopka; Ateliér Socha II, Škola prof. Jindřicha Zeithammla). Od r. 2019 je členem SČUG Hollar. Vedle malby a sochy se věnuje také poezii.  

Ondřej Maleček (1977) absolvoval v l. 1997 – 2001 Divadelní fakultu AMU v Praze (obor Scénografie) a v l. 2000 – 2006 Vysokou školu uměleckoprůmyslovou v Praze (Ateliér malby, prof. Pavel Nešlěha; doc. Stanislav Diviš). V r. 2010 obdržel stipendium MK ČR na tvůrčí činnost. Od r. 2010 působí jako externí lektor NGP. 

Josef Mladějovský (1986) absolvoval v l. 2005 – 2010 Katedru malby Ostravské univerzity (ateliér Františka Kowolowskiho). V r. 2011 byl nominoávan na cenu Sovereign Prize 2011 a v témže roce obdržel třetí místo v rámci IV. Ročníku Ceny kritiky pro mladou malbu s přesahy. 

Tomáš Skála (1987) absolvoval v l. 2007 – 2013 Akademii výtvarných umění v Praze (Ateliér Socha III, Škola Lukáše Rittsteina). V r. 2011 studijně pobýval na Listahaskoli Íslands (Icelandic Academy of the Arts) v Reykjavíku (Island). 

Tereza Štětinová (1987) absolvovala v l. 2006 – 2013 FAMU v Praze (obor Fotografie, pod vedením Bohumíra Prokůpka; Štěpánky Šimlové). V l. 2010-2011 studijně pobývala na École Nationale Supérieure d’Art Villa Arson, Nice ve Francii. V r. 2018 rezidenčně pobývala v Atelierhaus Salzamt v rakouském Linzi. V r. 2018 obdržela stipendium MK ČR na tvůrčí činnost. 

foto: Peter Fabo