Page 70 - The Black Box Book

Consequently, with the necessary time distance, the House of Arts at-
tempted to implement exhibitions installed in physical space during 2020,
but the exhibition Umění volá! (Art Is Calling), Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno
20
University of Technology (FaVU VUT) curated by Rostislav Koryčánek was
created directly for the online platform https://artiscalling.cz.
Over the course of one month (5. 11. 2020 – 30. 11. 2020), an exhi-
bition was installed in this online gallery, which was a curated selection of
diploma works by art students from the Czech Republic who graduated
in 2020. (Dům umění, 2020) A virtual 3D model of one of the buildings
of the House of Arts, Dům pánů z Kunštátu (the House of the Lords of
Kunštát), was created, in which the works of the graduates were placed.
In terms of the method of conveying content, the exhibition materializes
the translation of physical space into digital space while enriching
the digitized space with a new dimension - emphasizing the characteristics
of the web (utilizing the potential of 3D and moving through the exhibition
without respecting the laws of gravity). That is, qualities that cannot be
experienced when visiting an exhibition in a physical space. (Dekker, 2021,
p. 27) The virtual model of the exhibition also promised a few surprises,
which took the visitor to places where they would not normally go (for ex-
ample, the terrace space above the courtyard of the Dům pánů z Kunštá-
tu, which is normally inaccessible to the public). (https://artiscalling.cz/,
2020) The exhibition is an example of curating on the web, reflecting
the ecology of the adopted technology (in this case, the web) (Ghidini,
2019).
As mentioned earlier, some institutions, platforms, artists or curators
have been exploring the web environment for the presentation of art for
several decades (see the project The Broken Timeline, 2021). However,
21
in the case of the more traditional ones, we can see lockdown as a trig-
ger for accelerated research into the online environment, which enabled
the mediation of art exhibitions that could not be installed or visited in
Figure 10: Umění volá! (Art
Is Calling) (2020). Curator: Rostislav the physical space of museums or galleries. At the end of the same year
Koryčánek. Dům pánů z Kunštátu and in the months that follow, this new territory, which has seen a signif-
(House of the Lords of Kunštát),
print-screen from the web. Retrieved icant amount of settlement with a variety of online exhibitions and their
from https://artiscalling.cz/ guided tours, workshops, or discussions during 2020, starts to validate
and analyze new communication, distribution, and curatorial strategies.
This is done not only by the institutions themselves, but also by theorists
and curators, and so by comparing several major museums and galleries
(including the Getty, the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, and the Hastings Con-
temporary in the United Kingdom), for example, digital media theorist and
curator Annet Dekker concludes that “ it seems institutions have barely
changed and learned little when it comes to curating online exhibitions”.
(Dekker, 2021, p. 43)

20 Retrieved from https://artiscalling.cz/

21 Ghidini, M. & Tedone, G. & Dekker, A. (2021). The Broken Timeline.
Retrieved from https://thebrokentimeline.valiz-makingpublic.net/About
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