contemporary art, public art, Ostrava

Katalog mapuje 7. ročník festivalu umění ve veřejném prostoru, jehož ústřední téma vycházelo z úvah nizozemského historika a teoretika kultury Johana Huizingy (1872-1945), který ve hře spatřoval původ veškeré lidské kultury. Všechny velké původní činnosti lidského společenství jsou podle něj protkány hrou. Výtvarnému umění, jako jedinému z kulturních aktivit, však statut hry upřel. Festival se nezabýval ani tak relevantností tohoto tvrzení, které bylo i v době, kdy Huizinga tuto myšlenku formuloval, zjevně přezíravé vůči alespoň části avantgardních proudů meziválečného umění a směřoval spíše k tomu, zda tento „přehmat“ nějak nevyužít pro současnost. Základní premisa zněla: Hrajeme si a víme, že si hrajeme, tedy jsme něčím víc než rozumnými bytostmi, neboť hra je nerozumná… Jde ale o to, zdali je dostatečně nerozumné i současné angažované umění?

The central theme of the 7th year is based on the reflections of Johan Huizinga (1872–1945), a Dutch historian and theorist of culture who saw the origin of all human culture in play. In his opinion, all great original activities of the human community are intertwined with play. However, among cultural sectors, he only denied the status of play to fine arts. Let’s not discuss the relevance of this assertion, which, even at the time when Huizinga formulated this idea, was obviously disdainful at least in relation to a part of the avantgarde trends of interwar art, and let’s focus on whether this “error” can be somehow used for the present instead. The basic premise is: We play and know that we play, so we must be more than merely rational beings, for play is irrational… However, the question is whether the contemporary engaged art is also sufficiently irrational. We believe that not always and not enough, which often puts it in the role of a mentor nobody listens to. The fact is that play can only be taken seriously if nobody is forced to play. Each act of playing is first and foremost free behaviour. Play by order ceases to be play. It can be no more than the ordered reproduction of play. This is also our starting point in reflecting contemporary art. In short, art must once again become play to be taken seriously. As with play, it is superfluous in the world of empiricism and rationality, because it exists outside the process of immediate satisfaction of necessary needs and desires – even interrupting this process by creating its own order. The order that – despite the conviction of many – has nothing to do with truth or good. Yet it is an order that is capable of bringing temporarily limited perfection into the imperfect world and into our confused lives.