Well, in four short months I’m going to be moving out of the Objektiv Gallery.  In the meantime, I’m quite busy with finishing up my thesis, working on THEditions, and traveling a bit.

So it seems I won’t have much more time to put together shows at the Objektiv Gallery.  It was fun while it lasted, and perhaps when I find another nice and stable living place the gallery will rise from its ashes like a Phoenix.

Thanks to all who were involved.  XO, Todd. 

The Objektiv Gallery’s fourth exhibition features photographs and a video by Antonín Jirát. Jirát, an artist based in Prague, received his BcA in 2010 from Univerzita J. E. Purkyně’s Fakulta Umění a Designu. This exhibition, Total eclipse (Úplné zatmění), contains photographs and a video that examine how photography works as an epistemological lens to explore develop. The exhibition will opens on Wedneday the 26^th of January with a reception for the artist beginning at 6pm.

The show, titled Total Eclipse (Úplné zatmění), returns to the topic of distressed portraiture, which has been something of a theme for exhibitions at the gallery thus far(i.e. the Baker/Legris show The Pickle and Přibylský’s corridor). But the three pieces in Jirát’s fairly minimalist exhibition approach the subject from three very different angles, but they all focus on the topic of development.

The front room of the gallery has two photographic diptychs. The first, Bats, continues a series of Jirát’s work showing very direct images that can be interpreted, abstractly, as animals. Jirát has appropriated two vintage portraits of people talking on telephones into bats through the very simple move of turning the photographs upside-down. This flip also flips the hierarchy of evolutionary development, which we humans often place ourselves on the top of. It’s made all the more amusing by depicting these ‘bats’ on antique phones considering the sonar that bats have developed to navigate their night flights…



The second diptych much more personal: two portraits of the artist. One as a very young boy, and the other of him taken the day before the exhibition opened. As a boy, Jirát had serious visual problems which are apparent in the early portrait. Jirát seems to beckon the viewer to try to fill in the space between these pictures, while also commenting on his own bafflement on how he became the person he is today:



The main room of the gallery is devoted to a ten minute video, Cosmic Story, during which various ‘firsts’ of the space race coalesce out of a torrent of digital noise. This piece takes the peculiarly cast of characters involved in early space exploration – men, women, and monkeys – and mixes it with the story of mankind’s attempt to escape the very specific world that drove its own development.


The exhibition as a whole is musings on mankind’s ability to remember the past and to prepare for the future while caught in the unique circumstances of our time.

This exhibition is on view by appointment only. It will last until we decide it’s time to put something new on the walls (at least a month, maybe two).

The Objektiv Gallery’s autumn group exhibition features work by the Photography in English Studio at Univerzita J. E. Purkyně’s Fakulta Umění a Designu. The exhibition, Beyond the Dreamscape, features fourteen artists from seven different countries, all of whom are studying at FUD UJEP.  

Lara Clarke-Wardle, Dulcy Lott, Mark Prethero, Marc Redford, Jessica Rice, and Annie Smith arrived in the Czech Republic to study from the United Kingdom and are all enrolled in the UJEP MgA program. From the Czech Republic Tereza Haszprunarová, Adéla Kantůrková, and Aleš Loziak are also part of the Masters course; as are Yauheni Tsitko (from Belarus) and Sesin Akmas (from Turkey).     

Alongside the UJEP MgA students, a number of Erasmus Scholars are also participating in the exhibition… Jale Kahraman (from Turkey), Nurtane Karagil (from Cyprus), Petri Laukkanen (from Finland), and Juliette Henriette Liautaud (from France).  

This exhibition features photographs, videos, and performance.  As the title suggests, themes of dreams and surrealism are central to many of the artists featured in this exhibition… Without further ado, here’s work form the exhibition:

Lara Clarke-Wardle’s photograph made with a scanner:

And Marc Redford’s pinhole portrait ‘Deena’, from a large-format negative…

Two photographs from Mark Prethero’s “Beneath the Pavement, the Beach”:   

Annie Smith’s work is titled after a Franz Kafka quote: “You are free and that is why you are lost”…

Jessica Rice had a photo installed above the sink in the guest bathroom:

And she also performed during the exhibition, as her alter-ego Bonnie Clemens whose dress seemed to match her photograph:

Tereza Haszprunarová showed two series, ‘Space Odyssey’ and ‘Blue Landscape’…   

Adéla Kantůrková’s photographs of pigs…

While Yauheni Tsitko showed his series ‘Ústí pod Labem’, or Ústí below the Labem:   

Sesin Akmaz series ‘Diary’…

Jale Kahraman’s painting…

Along with three photographs and some text:

Petri Laukkanen’s work was the inspiration for the exhibition’s title, ‘Beyond the Dreamscape’:

Also as a part of the exhibition are three photographs by Juliette Henriette Liautaud, titled ‘It was really early on the morning but it could have been at the really end of the day.’:

Nurtane Karagil installation of series of drawings in the kitchen (see installation shots from the opening).  And Aleš Loziak’s installation photograph  ‘Detached’ hung above the kitchen:

And thanks to Yauheni Tsitko for the following photographs from the opening:

That’s all.

Video documentation of Jan Přibylský’s performance piece, corridor, on the Prague Metro in August of 2010.

The Objektiv Gallery is pleased to announce our second exhibition, featuring Jan Přibylský. Přibylský is a photographer based in Prague who received his BcA in 2010 from Univerzita J. E. Purkyně’s Fakulta Umění a Designu. This exhibition, corridor, contains photographs and a video that question the role of photography in our society, and the photographer’s role in the world today. The exhibition will open on Thursday the 5th of August with a reception for the artist from 7:30 to 10:00 pm. 

In today’s urban world, we are inundated with photographic images.  Advertisements line the streets, trying to get viewers to ‘improve’ their lives by using a certain product.  Compact digital cameras and camera phones provide a means for most anyone to create photographs.  And the internet and social networking sites allow rapid sharing of these images.  This has caused changes in the role that photography plays in the world today. 

These changes have been a theme in Přibylský’s work. This new series continues on Přibylský’s BcA portfolio in exploring how the public perceives photography and the role of the photographer in their daily lives.  In Přibylský BcA work, he asked people whom he met in public spaces to reverse roles with him… These citizens took his role, as photographer, while he took their role and was photographed.

In the performance of corridor, Přibylský placed portraits of himself in the context of a mundane daily routine, commuting on the Prague Metro. In the gallery exhibition, Přibylský presents the series of photographs that were used in this performance, as well as a video documenting this performance. 

Portraits of Přibylský where used to create a path to attempt to control Prague commuters during rush hour. His first portraits are directing pedestrians as Přibylský tries to herd the commuters in hopes that they might avoid stepping on his photographs. Images farther through this linear series show him in increase states of distress, as his likeness is trampled by thousands of feet that crush and damage the photographs. 

After the performance, the portraits were collected from the metro floor and hung on our gallery’s walls.  The photographs are accompanied by a video of this action.  In the gallery space, the context is shifted.  The dirty photographs don’t seem to be precious art objects; instead they look like tattered relics.  Do they represent merely a residue of this performance piece or is this a different ‘art experience’? By moving between several media (photography, video, and performance) as well as two discrete artistic events (the performance and the exhibition) Přibylský questions the relationship between these media and spaces.

This exhibition is on view by appointment only.  It will last until we decide it’s time to put something new on the walls (at least a month, maybe two).

This week we’re taking down Nathan Baker’s photographs and Eric Legris’s paintings to prepare for corridor, an exhibition by Jan Přibylský.  So, it seems a fine time to post a few photographs from It’s not the Sandwich we Enjoy, It’s the Pickle…

Here is the photograph and painting from the foyer, above my running shoes: 

Eric’s painting tucked between the electric box and radiator:

I stepped on this woman’s grimacing face every day:

The collaborative centerpiece of the exhibition:

We started to hang the new show this morning.  So I hope to see many folks on Thursday, August 5th… from 7:30-10:00PM we’ll be having a reception for Jan’s new exhibition.

It’s not the Sandwich we Enjoy, it’s the Pickle.

18:00-20:00 on Friday, the 21st of May, 2010.

For more details, please contact us…
+420 721 561 433 or objektiv.gallery@gmail.com.

Objektiv Gallery is pleased to announce our debut exhibition feature photographs, paintings, video, and installation by Nathan Baker and Eric Legris, two American artists currently based in Berlin, Germany. It’s not the Sandwich we Enjoy, it’s the Pickle is an exhibition on the theme of exertion.  The show examines what happens when we push boundaries, both in terms of our physical limits as well as mental.  The exhibition will open on Friday the 21st of May with a reception for the artists from 6:00 to 8:00 pm.  Beer and pickles will be served.

Nathan Baker’s photographs from the series Ugghhh… depict the faces of marathon runners full of the tension caused by the race. The images begin with what looks like the serial portraiture typical of passport photographs. The consistent framing references the contrived and canned nature of the contemporary marathon experience.  However, rather than blank and expressionless, these serial portraits depict the subjects in their self-inflicted agony.  The act of running is shown as a strange routine that is advertised as a means to escape from our ordinary limits. Printed on materials similar to the advertising banners that sponsors fill the streets with during marathon races, the photo examine the commoditization and commercialization of this form of exertion.  

Similarly, Baker’s video, Sunburn, shows the physical torment that people go through in order to change their appearance. Artificial tanning is perhaps the most superficial way of doing so, as its effect is limited to the skin, our surface.  These works ponder whether our lives and humanity end at our physical limitations and appearance, as well as the means we use to try to escape these limits.

The work of Eric Legris questions how these same limits and boundaries exist in the terms of a painting.   First, he chooses what to paint.  For this exhibition, it’s the black-and-white checkered motif of a race flag or chessboard, two sports that require great concentration and endurance. Legris paints this same design over and over again on a large canvas to create a handmade pattern.  This action is an intense process for Legris as the painting is created from start to finish with very little rest.  He then cuts this large painting into several pieces.  Finally, Legris stretches these fragments over different sized frames, creating several new complete paintings out of what was once just one. These new paintings are hung throughout the exhibition space, paying careful attention to the space between the paintings.  

In this work, Legris asks where painting begins and ends.  Is it limited to the one-of-a-kind object?  Or does it reach beyond these bounds through the space he creates between what was once a single painting?  And beyond the physical space of the gallery, how effectively can a painting exist through the reproductions in books and on the Internet?