Page 60 - The Black Box Book

the observatory outputs of Tomáš Moravanský and Ladislav Mirvald.
Figure 5: Polina Davyden-
ko (2020). Recording of the event.
Author’s archive
Among the projects that have become part of the Black Box project,
more classical genres such as diary entries, drawings and illustrations are
represented, as well as participatory or activist projects. Vojtěch Kundrát
formed a close connection to it with a clearly formulated attitude towards
it in a project that follows the author’s long-developed concept of “activ-
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ist chemistry” . The first Covid wave in the Czech Republic was marked
by a shaking of confidence in the competence of the state apparatus,
one of the essential manifestations of which was the complete lack of
protective equipment, especially masks. This fact activated civil society
and strengthened its self-sufficiency. Vojtěch Kundrát and his team of
volunteers, therefore, created nanofibre protective masks, which they
distributed for free. A special group among the projects represented are
12 The author has applied the concept of “activist chemistry” for example
in the use of nanotechnology to solve the fatal water shortage in African
countries.
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Moravanský’s footage of his own exhibition at the Brno House of Arts,
automatically captured by a webcam, captures the absolute mortification
of a public institution where only things and machines remain because,
without viewer interaction, art is reduced to the material level of “things”.
The sound recordings of Ladislav Mirvald, made in concert halls and music
clubs, which suddenly found themselves in a post-apocalyptic silence,
have a similar effect. Johana Merta and Polina Davydenko, on the other
hand, carried out participatory projects searching for ways to maintain
the necessary social ties and mental health even in isolation. Davydenko
turned to her own community of friends, for whom she sought a modus
operandi for their meeting and sharing under conditions of lockdown-re-
stricted social contacts. Johanna Merta’s project was situated within
the broader and more erratic social structure of her village neighbours,
whom she sought to motivate in their determination not to succumb to
fear and anxiety. The list of participants is rounded off by artists who
work with more classical media forms and whose connection to the covid
experience is at the same time more abstract or loose. Ondřej Homo-
la’s collages, referring to the genre of satire and cartoon humour, gloss
over social conditions. Markéta Filipová’s watercolours have the character
of introspective records, insights into the artist’s fantasy world of love and
harmony, where one can safely hide from the covid reality.
However, it is not strictly necessary to look for ‘records of the crash’
in the collected works of art. It would wind up being a one-sided interpre-
tation. In fact, during the period in question, many cultural projects were
created that used the crisis as an effective marketing tool that reliably
attracted wider social attention and thus the desired financial and me-
dia support. An example of this is the travelling exhibition Helpful Art in
Covid, which mechanically grafted visual representations of the pandemic
onto various pop culture references, but whose main motifs were nothing
more than the display of various representations of the coronavirus and
the masks . In the Black Box project, on the other hand, we wanted to
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avoid any instruction or manipulation. Demanding that the artists thematise
the crisis with legible attributes seemed to discredit all of us, i.e.,
the artists, the curators and, of course, the audience.
So, what is the metaphor of the black box, which appears in
the project title, referring to? It refers not so much to the body of art-
works supported but to the transformation of our gallery institution during
the health crisis. This micro-story of ours has confirmed that galleries
cannot serve as showcases for art but should – and must – also be
producers and patrons of contemporary art. The Coronavirus crisis thus
contributed to further questioning the gallery institution as a mausoleum
that only fixes and petrifies art (Magid, 2019).
13 The project Helpful Art in Covid has its own website where the whole
project is communicated as an Online exhibition – artincovid.com
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