Václav Girsa
Curated by Sam
Opening | > 19th July 2014 | > 6 p.m.
20th July - 28th September 2014
Touch the Spirit is the name of an interactive image that was originally intended as a gift to Vaclav's father. However, in order to maintain the conformity of the architect's office it did not serve its original purpose. Neverthelsss, it serves us as a gateway to understanding Girsa's work and as an entrance to the exhibition. Other than the banal instruction to use the touch mechanism that switches on a spirit in the image and a secondary link to the intangible world, the ambiguous incentive of "Touch the Spirit" also obtains the story through which it is possible to demonstrate the source and explain the nature of Vaclav's work. When we simplify and generalize the situation, a child wanted to dedicate its parent a picture, but due to some impropriety it was rejected. When you browse his paintings, you can detect a kind of deliberate lack of calculation being used as a strategy. Whether consciously or subconsciously, he wants to draw attention to the conformity that creates social distance and distorts relationships.
Vaclav Girsa combines authentic experiences and creates his own symbolic system in his paintings. There is still life in it; bats, owls, cats, and, in the early pictures, a depiction of the devil and blacksmith, or a torture chamber for women, which attracted a Coca Cola stand. Almost any random cross-section of his work gives the impression that he is searching for a balance between existence and the spiritual world. This is associated with a tendency towards mysticism that does not manifest in other esoteric inclinations. To deepen his sensory experiences he is willing to experiment with drugs. One of Vaclav's unusual hobbies that led to unusual experiences was finding ghosts in castles. After graduating from Painting at AVU in Prague, he began travelling and several images were created as a result of the ispiration these journeys (to Argentina and New Zealand) instilled in him.
Some of them grew into a form of assemblage, where Vaclav incorporated buttons or a license plate he had found. He also enters the pictures through interactivity. He creates objects that are equivalent in their character to images. The visuality of many of his works is also associated with music which is an integral part of his expression. This topic was developed in the UMRPUM exhibition last year in which the paintings illustrated lyrics to songs.
Sam created the concept of the exhibition Touch the Spirit as a response to the form of previous exhibitions, which some viewers associated with the atmosphere of a rock club. Sam wants to break any hint of indebtness to a community and cancel the connection to what was written about whom where. The exhibition is to offer an opportunity to take a deep breath and let the scope of his work sink in in its entirety. The picture Touch the Spirit is not defended/ represented (?) in the exhibition.
