FFU 6

Fotofestival Uničov 6
May 13–15, 2016

Facebook event: www.bit.ly/ffu6udalost

The theme of this year’s Fotofestival Uničov is photography as prefiguration — as a model for images to come. Contrary to expectations, photography did not become the ruin of painting in the 19th century. For many artists it served as a model, and it freed the hands of others to search for abstraction. Its influence on the development of art is fundamental and came much earlier than the petty struggle for photography’s recognition as art. Across the not quite two centuries of the medium’s existence, there have been countless possibilities and ways of using photography — from the more conspicuous ones, such as collage or working with archives, to using found photographs as inspiration for painting. Exhibitions, site-specific installations, talks, and discussions will present a selection of these often surprising possibilities. / Text: Martin Fišr

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Fri 17:00 — EXHIBITION OPENING
Magdalena A. Turzová – Sadness of Things
Galerie UPSIDE|DOWN, Gymnázium Uničov, Gymnazijní 257

In her latest series of paintings, Sadness of Things, Magdalena A. Turzová (b. 1978) draws on websites where people offer all kinds of goods for free — or rather, for whoever will haul them away. Amateur photographs of banalities such as a small fish tank, a dressing-table mirror, plates, windows, a portable cabin, or a couch become the source for paintings on canvas. Although the technique is not oil painting, the contrast of the care Magdalena devotes to capturing unwanted surplus is typical of her work. In her painting she has long explored the oddities of the Haná countryside. In her previous exhibition at the W7 gallery in Olomouc, titled Ospalá díra (Sleepy Hole), she focused on rather landscape-like moments. The new still lifes, whatever their origin, are a logical step beneath the surface of strangely patched-together dwellings and an untamed landscape.

Fri 19:00 — PERFORMANCE
Oldřich Bystřický – Tichý díl
New Teta Gallery, Dr. Beneše 89

For his performance at the photo festival, Oldřich Bystřický (b. 1981) will go through his rich image archive. He collects small traces from the days when handmade production still prevailed and nothing was made just to barely outlast its warranty. Sometimes these are literal fragments — such as tiles from the demolished ground floors of functionalist apartment buildings. At other times, construction manuals, photo postcards, stencils, yellowed drawings from geometry class… Their timelessness is reaffirmed by his own drawings.

EXHIBITION OPENING
Michaela Kuříková – Kousky a chvilky
New Teta Gallery, Dr. Beneše 89

Through collage and drawing, Michaela Kuříková (b. 1982) uses the exhibition Kousky a chvilky (Bits and Moments) to uncover the (un)important ties between a whole and its individual parts. Her work reflects a general effort to find one’s bearings in the tangle of visual information and stimuli we are exposed to every day.
Fri 21:00 — MUSIC

AID KID live set, Czenda
Motokáry Uničov, Šumperská 1195

Aid Kid. Behind the pseudonym is musician, producer, and multimedia artist Ondra Mikula. After releasing his first two singles (Sleep Start and Broken Arp) and opening for established international acts (SOHN, SOPHIE, Groundislava, Wax Tailor, Arms and Sleepers, and others), he became a rising star of Prague’s electronic music scene. His live sets are built on improvising his own tracks, combining emotive beats with escalating structures. In April 2015, Aid Kid self-released an eponymous debut album that drew positive critical response. He is currently studying art and design with a focus on interactive installations, multichannel sound art, and video mapping. As a member of the audiovisual collective Black Division, he has worked on a number of video-mapping projects shown, for example, on Old Town Square in Prague and at Expo 2015 in Milan. / text: Radio Wave
www.aidkid.cz

Czenda. He hatched out of the undergrowth of the still active and successful Rebellions crew, which since its beginnings (in 2005) has been influenced mainly by dub, reggae, and jungle. He loves music, and behind the decks he focuses on various offshoots of electronica. At FFU 6, expect a rather eclectic selection of favorite musicians.

Sat 14:00 — TALK
Lenka Opálková – Písmo bijáků a kulturáků
Muzeum Baroka, Kostelní nám. 153

Lenka Opálková (b. 1989), a graphic design student in Zlín, will present her research-cum-archaeological project on the typography used on the buildings of cultural and community centers, titled Písmo bijáků a kulturáků (The Lettering of Picture Houses and Culture Houses). She rediscovers buildings and places with a distinctive visual identity before they disappear from public space for good.

Sat 16:00 — TALK
Jan Zálešák – Projektivní archeologie
Muzeum Baroka, Kostelní nám. 153

Jan Zálešák (b. 1979). Some time ago, Dieter Roelstraete described post-socialist Europe as an exclusive archaeological site — at least from the perspective of those who, around the middle of the last decade, began setting out on journeys into a past stored in archive boxes, magazines, films, and photographs. The talk will focus on several selected artists from the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia whose work is remarkable for the ways it uses photography as a source for the (re)construction of individual and collective memory.

Sat 18:00 — EXHIBITION OPENING
Tomáš Pospěch – Pěstitelské a kurátorské práce
Galerie U Minoritů, Haškova 217

Tomáš Pospěch (b. 1974) will present several works that offer a new look at found slides from the Agrokombinát Slušovice agricultural cooperative. They were taken between 1978 and 1989 by Zlín advertising photographer Jan Regal. In the exhibition they are complemented by other works made in present-day Slušovice in direct response to this archive. Placing the photographs in a new context takes nothing away from what they actually depict, but it newly allows a comparison of further layers of the image, in which we can trace the various systems of representation and promotional strategies used when they were made.

Sat 19:00 — PERFORMANCE
Viktor Takáč – Paobraz
Šatlava – muzeum vězeňství, Příční 205

“For me, the prefiguration of images is the so-called afterimage effect. An image that we catch within a cluster of images and that, for some unknown reason, tends to linger, not to fade. The question is whether we should expect any reason at all. Does joining such images together produce a new image — saturated, dense? Or do such images point to the existence of a puzzle in which individual images fit together? Do new images crystallize this way, or are they images we have long since seen? For a start, I will settle for the fact that images may tend to linger, not to fade.”

Viktor Takáč (b. 1982) works most often with new media. Gallery visitors know him as the author of videos, video objects, and installations in which he breaks the film medium down into its individual elements and principles. The newly assembled images are often technically demanding puzzles. In the performance Paobraz (Afterimage), he will call into question our trust in our perception of space and turn our retinas into projection screens. It will be an excursion to the very roots of the moving image.

www.viktortakac.cz

Sat 20:00 — MUSIC
Edoshův Kurník, Marfoldy, Mango Sheikh
Motokáry Uničov, Šumperská 1195

Edoshův Kurník. Young Dada rap from Kutná Hora. Edosh Zpochybňovač (rap, beats), Tromboza Narušená (rap), Laktoza (rap, vocals), Qbeat (beatbox), and Brutální Nikita (creative consultant). The music of Edoshův Kurník (Edosh’s Henhouse) draws on hip hop, raw electro, dubstep, and jazz. The lyrics are written collectively or individually, with input and interventions from all the egg-layers. Their gigs consist of clucking to beats alongside a feathered theatrical performance, complete with props and beer.

Marfoldy. Music programmer at UP AIR, a small radio station in Olomouc, getting her first year’s taste of the charms of DJing.

Mango Sheikh. A one-person band from Jihlava, founded in 2014, whose work on the border of psychedelia and electronica combines elements of dub, samples of all kinds of origin, and live-played instruments. / www.soundcloud.com/mango-sheikh

Sun, May 15, 2016 – TRIP
optional trip (to be arranged during the festival if there is interest)

In cooperation with:
Městské kulturní zařízení Uničov, Gymnázium Uničov

Supported by:
Town of Uničov

Organizers:
Petr Willert, Martin Fišr, Radomír Veselý, Radka Vařeková, Vojtěch Janoušek, Lucie Polášková, Jan Gabriel, Marie Vařeková + galerie UPSIDEDOWN