A Drifter`s Songs of Life and Death
Group exhibition A Drifter`s Songs of Life and Death
at the Czech Centre Vienna
First collaboration between Vienna Art Week and Prague Art Week
and the Czech Centre Vienna.
Prague Art Week, in collaboration with the Czech Centre Vienna, presents the exhibition A Drifter`s Songs of Life and Death as part of the Vienna Art Week programme, featuring works by seven artists whose work depicts contemplative motifs of wandering through nature in the Czech Republic and the former Austria-Hungary. The group exhibition is part of Vienna Art Week and will be on view from 10 to 30 November 2023.
The exhibition will feature works by Štěpán Brož, Adam Holý, Linda Morell, Anna Ruth, Petr Strouhal, Tereza Zelenková, two original editions of writings by Jiří Karásek from Lvovice, and antique objects of forgotten vagabonds and romantics from the Art House Hejtmánek and private collections. More detailed information about the artists can be found on the website.
The exhibition is curated by Lenka and Richard Bakeš.
The exhibition is titled after the collection of Jiří Karásek from Lvovice, a classic of Czech Modernism – Neo-Romanticism and Decadence. The theme of the exhibition is wandering, a journey through landscapes, natural, cultural, mental, but also post-industrial landscapes of intelligent machines and dangerous (crazy) hyper objects. The journey, as an “escape”, can be seen as escapism from this too “complex” world, but at the same time it can also be a renewed attempt at the renaissance of man and humanity as such through transcendence, nomadism. There is only one world – be it the “real” one or the one in our deepest imaginations. “Man should be the creator and author of the map defining the parallels and meridians of his own life” – and thus open up space for his own independent action, individuality and wonder at the world in a mechanized age,” called for a creative journey through life by R.W. Emerson, the American poet and philosopher who, following the example of European Romanticism, related spiritually to nature.