Exhibitions

Jiri Svestka Berlin presents the Czech artist duo Jiri Franta (born 1978) / David Böhm (born 1982) in Germany for the first time. For both artists a key role in their artistic practice is played by the space where they exhibit and sometimes execute their artworks. Perhaps this was also one of the reasons why they decided to modify the layout of the Jiri Svestka Gallery space into something similar to a complicated, disorienting labyrinth where they installed the artworks in contexts so innovative and surprising the viewer perceives their aesthetic and narrative qualities merely as a kind of added value.

The dominant characteristics of the duos practice – based predominantly on classical drawing technique (although their installations also employ other media) – include playful toying with meanings, the substitution of authorship, the exploration of different forms of installation and the phenomenon of the process of drawing. The mechanism of automatic association flow and the more intuitive conception characteristic from the beginnings of their collaboration has gradually been replaced by increasingly focused (but still highly playful) productions concerned with the relationship between drawing and performance, as well as with transcending the boundary between drawing and conceptual art. They have developed this discipline beyond its ostensible borders, either by displacing and shifting our established notions of the phenomenon of drawing or through mechanical games with the medium itself. An important role is also played by the dialogue between the two artists, thanks to which they achieve results that differ from their individual productions. They often react to one another instantly and the constantly increasing level of their mutual “interconnectedness” gives rise to something that can be compared to the effect of psychological reverberation, or echo.

Precisely by exploring this effect and expanding its field of influence on the viewer the artists have produced an installation of their work that is almost over-complicated. Placing the most diverse obstacles in the way of exhibition visitors and deliberately making it problematic to perceive the displayed drawings, which for the same reason contain an increasing number of flaws and inaccuracies that are the necessary result of the echo effect. One particular drawing may only be viewed as a reflection in a mirror, for example, while others are forced to give the impression of three-dimensional structures. Thanks to the emphasis on the shifting of the physical possibilities of the medium the artefacts themselves often become secondary. However, the publication “Sketchbook” produced to accompany the exhibition in the Jiri Svestka Gallery shows that the Jiri Franta / David Böhm duo also has the potential to engross in more straightforward ways and that the vitality and fresh spirit of their artworks means they will find a positive “echo” returning from a broad spectrum of the general public.