Last space for a man

Karlín Studios, Prague, 3. 5.–3. 6. 2012

The exhibition project Last space for a man has been conceived by its curators Pavla Gajdošíková, Daniela Baráčková and Petra Herotová based on a common intuition rather than on strictly limited content scheme. Here the joining topic is the space. It is, however, not thematised only by attributes that define it (architecture etc.), but also by factors that “fill” it, such as events, relationships, experiences or emotional excitements. Participating artists were not considering space in an objective, speculative way; they rather presented themselves as creators and fellow holders of its content. It could be our living intimate space and our relation to it, or a place where we find ourselves involuntary, as social or health institutions, where the space is something we are obliged to share. It could also be a location, with whose “spirit” the artist deals.

The ambition of this project is therefore to combine points of view on space as being a gift and a burden in the same time. The seemingly used up topic of man and space, however, still offers many possibilities – place as status, determination of relationships, fatality of territory, limits of orientation, relativity of positions – all those are issues that can still be worked with. As the strategy of research in this project initiators have been inviting artists upon the criteria of already existing works or character of their already existing “things” or nature of their work, which in many cases resulted in further cooperation. The exhibition was therefore a synthesis of works created independently and participative works resulted of initiated cooperation.

Photo: Tomáš Souček