Artalk Revue – Návrat (Return)

#1 min Tereza Rudolf

2. 6. 2020

Installation view, Spectral-White. The Appearance of Colonial-Era Europeans, 1. 11. 2019 – 6. 1. 2020, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, photo Silke Briel / HKW
Installation view, Spectral-White. The Appearance of Colonial-Era Europeans, 1. 11. 2019 – 6. 1. 2020, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, photo Silke Briel / HKW
#36 New UtopiasReviewPostcolonialism

Artalk Revue is a project of considerable ambition by the online review platform artalk.cz. It goes well beyond what we might expect from a primarily informative medium. The four reviews published so far are based on the concept of an invited theorist. Two years after the first thematic revue, Těžba (Mining), we arrive at the aptly-named Return, edited by Vjera Borozan. All the texts in the Artalk Revue are available online in both Czech and English. Return focuses on the topic of decolonization and the consequences of imperialist rule. However, the revue does not lose sight of the local context, whose recent history is taken up by Pavel Barša. Jan Sowa, a critic working in postcolonial studies and identity politics, also discusses the Central European situation. Theorist and curator Denise Ferreira da Silva presents a deeper analysis of the links between two current crises—ecology and migration.

Artalk Revue: Návrat (Return) [online]. Prague: Artalk, 2020, 4 (winter).
Available at: https://artalk.cz/category/ artalk-revue/

Text | Tereza Rudolf

#36 New UtopiasReviewPostcolonialismNon-work

Tereza Rudolf

is an art critic and reviewer focusing on photography and contemporary art. From 2016 to 2022, she participated - in different positions - in the programme of the Fotograf Festival.

#36 New Utopias

We understand the phenomenon of Utopia as a problematically broad concept. For this reason we will try to anchor it primarily in the field of political economy, and to present it to the reader through the prism of the most contemporary artistic and theoretical interpretations. Today, the term utopia is often interpreted primarily as a historical term that does not bring much new, and which, in society generally, is primarily related to the past. In the case of visual culture and art, it is particularly associated with modernist architectural visions expressing ideas of the new organization of society. We want to avoid this kind of simplistic approach that buries itself in history. Of course, we cannot ignore some major projects, such as the Black Panthers political movement; Black Mountain College art education; the architecture of the Florentine radical designers, UFO, Superstudio, or 9999; or the projects of Le Corbusier or the Bauhaus school. It is always necessary, however, to offer an insight into how we relate to these ideas today and thus how they are treated in the realm of the image. Our basis for interpreting the idea of utopia is for us the term commons, or joint sharing. It allows us to play out, in this issue, the search for new utopias in contemporary society. We ask how new possibilities of cooperation, coexistence, and the sharing of resources, information, and commodities are currently reflected in the visual arts (and, in regard to history, what are they drawing on)? We are interested in the fields of community and spiritual life, in new economic networks, radical pedagogy, current visions of the possibilities of the scientific exploration of the world, and in ways of creating new forms of social relations. We would like to try to find answers to what roles and forms of utopia there are in today’s society, which is labeled with so many dystopian terms (e.g. risky or post-truth), and by means of this thematic issue we want to offer a positive survey of possible solutions to current catastrophic data, scenarios and debates. In a time of “permanent crisis,” it is precisely solutions that are so much called for, but they are only rarely presented in art and theory. From the perspective of visual communication, besides photography, we will also turn more to the new possibilities of depiction that artists work with in order to prefigure new systems of communication and relationships. That is, work with the moving image, video games, and computer animations.

Editor’s Pics by Tereza Rudolf

#4 min Tereza Rudolf

Editor’s Pics by Tereza Rudolf

Fotograf zone Editorial picsFotograf Magazine

I’m putting this selection together on my phone. Every now and then, I switch to camera mode and try to photograph my children endlessly tunnelling through the sand beneath a beach umbrella. In much the same straightforward way, I’ve chosen a handful of favourite articles and artist profiles connected to themes of travel, tourism, family photography, and borders of all kinds—not just national ones. Consider this a reading and viewing list for journeys, or perhaps about journeys.

Ada Zielińska – Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn

#3 min Tereza Rudolf, Ada Zielińska

Ada Zielińska – Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn

#46 TourismProfileEnvironment

The contemporary tourist is either something of a cynic, a naive consumer of experiences or a constantly fleeing romantic. Ada Zielińska travels through various landscapes for her work, and her photographs contain a certain amount of both romanticism and cynicism. Naivety, in her case, was burnt up before it even approached the artist’s central motif – the automobile. The burning automobile, that is.

Sanaz Sohrabi – Are Images Ever Innocent?

#4 min Tereza Rudolf, Sanaz Sohrabi

Sanaz Sohrabi – Are Images Ever Innocent?

#41 Postdigital PhotographyProfileArchive

Although it might sometimes seem that way, photographs never exist in themselves. And this is doubly true of those made by machines or for archival or documentary purposes. As the art of Sanaz Sohrabi demonstrates, images (and particularly reproduced images) are part of often unwanted testimony embedded into dense nets of relationship. In her work, the artist then untangles these threads and reweaves them into artfully crafted rugs.

Oreet Ashery – We Die As We Live: Repeating Chapters on Mutual Equality

#4 min Tereza Rudolf, Oreet Ashery

Oreet Ashery – We Die As We Live: Repeating Chapters on Mutual Equality

#38 Death, When You Think About ItProfileLGBTQ+

For years, humor, irony and sharp critique have all been important elements in the art of Oreet Ashery, arising from her direct experience of an artist living in a multicultural environment who is originally from a more conservative background, socially and religiously speaking. However, the performative events through which Ashery imprints herself into public spaces are only one part of a complex series on dying and leaving public life, Revisiting Genesis, through which the artist expresses her position on the still overlooked and badly articulated theme of death.

Uneven ground

#3 min Tereza Rudolf

Uneven ground

#37 Uneven GroundEditorialIdentity

Am I strong enough to abandon the tracks I know? To terminate dysfunctional relationships? These are some of the questions Kateřina Konvalinová asks in her text – hummed to the rhythm of a pop song fading out – which serves as a goodbye letter. Whether we are changing our relationships with people or the planet, our hesitation is a symptom of fear. Fear of stepping outside our usual terrain. But the other; the unknown is found outside our usual experiences and everyday paths. The focus of this issue and this year’s Fotograf Festival is the need to overcome fear; to take the first step and search out encounters on uneven ground.