The paradox of the modern world is our abundance. We have never had so much food on the table, so many goods on the store shelves, so many cars in front of our houses, so many TV channels, so much time off to travel around the world.

 

However, we are more dissatisfied and sicker. I don't mean just modern allergies, diabetes or cardiovascular diseases. I mean mainly mental illnesses - because from such a postmodern madhouse that is around us, one can really go crazy.

 

According to Belgian psychiatrist Prof. Dirk Wachter, in every era, in every society, there is some predominant mental illness, some diagnosis of the time, which characterizes this era.

Currently it is borderline personality disorder and several other psychological disorders - from minor deviations, to depression, dissatisfaction, loneliness, lability and frustration to suicidal tendencies.

It seems the Normal Times had ended, and a new Crazy Age had begun.

 

The world is full of crises, tensions and contrary opinions. It is hugely polarized. It can be seen daily in politics and in the media.

 

And how is it in art??

Finding a common language is even more difficult because art comes from the inside of a person and its subtle emotional reactions. And most importantly, there is a huge number of possible points of view.

 

Hundreds of books have already been written just to define the concept of art. However, we are not sure if this era is postmodern, post-conceptual, post-avant-garde, post-informal, neo-liberal, if it is post-avant-garde irrealism or a completely new transmodernity.

According to Czech philosopher Tereza Matějčková, we find ourselves in transmodernity.

 

We are facing the questioning of everything and the relativization of all the meaning of action. Boundaries between objective facts and subjective thoughts are washed away so no perspective can be seen. In addition, scientists found 1 electron can be in 2 places at the same time...!

People today really lack basic certainties - in politics, in society, in their personal lives. And when those certainties are also destroyed by art, we all feel lost in chaos.

 

The confusion, excessive polarization and individualism have revoked all previous norms.

We are experiencing also chaos in the meaning of words.

Words such as right and duty are swapped.

Pride is called self-esteem.

Self-indulgence is called a higher standard of living.

Vulgarity is called a freedom of speech.

 

We can observe such freedom of expression in art. I would very often call it not only vulgarity but rather disgusting profanity without visible purgative overtone.

What else to call Jiří David's painting which shows nothing except the word ‘whore‘?

Václav Stratil has been expressing himself similarly for a long time…and unsurprisingly their students follow them in their footsteps.

 

Now, I'll go back shortly to my post I had here on Forfest five years ago.

It was called THE DRUNKEN OLD WOMAN OF CONTEMPORARY ART.

In short, it was a comparison of the development of ancient art to the present. Back then, in the time of classical Greece, when the Greek states were forming and developing, artists always depicted beautiful ideals, ideal figures of gods and heroes who gave the community order and importance.

Whereas later, during the Hellenistic period, when the decline of Greek society and culture was already beginning - deformed figures, hunchbacks, caricatures, sick and old people suddenly appear here. A typical example is the well-known Drunken Old Woman = an ugly, twisted, wrinkled figure of an old woman with a jug of wine.

 

Anyone who visits contemporary exhibitions that are full of violence, shocking perversions, dismembered bodies or depressing scenes must see that contemporary art is much more like the Drunken Old Women than some beautiful ideals.

The idea of BEAUTY and HARMONY is outmoded. It is replaced by modern (or postmodern?) idea TO SHOCK.

What does it say about our consciousness? About our society? About contemporary art?

Doesn't it show a decay as much as in antiquity?

 

Yes, according to this, our society has long been in the phase of decay. The value system has dissolved irretrievably, and the end of civilization is coming...

In fact, it's a wonder we're still sitting here and discussing!

 

I will ask the question - why are we discussing here - from another point of view:

Why is there even a festival of SPIRITUAL art???

Does it mean that here is spiritual art and somewhere else is non-spiritual one?

 

We can safely answer yes. Today's art is rather more about entertainment industry and business than true spiritual art.

 

This leads to the question of the responsibility of each person – for his life, for his attitudes, for the world we create and for his art, too. The art we either produce or consume.

 

What responsibility do famous artists have?

As an example, this can be seen in Jiří David's quote:

"…I wonder from where more and more idiots are coming ... and that no one has revealed us although we make a fool from everyone and on top of that they pay money for it. And if you can keep fooling them long enough with all kinds of pure ideas, grandeur and non-conformity, they are paying even more. ... Full of such bullshit which you skilfully let out into the faces of all these idiots, and you can't help but wonder how they eat it up... And if you get on your side a few experts, journalists, you'll be taken care of for a few years..."

 

Unfortunately, a lot of journalists and curators prevailed over the common sense of most gallerists and collectors.

According to Igor Malijevsky, an INNER CIRCLE of artists and curators was created. It is not allowed others to join them. Only they decide what is exhibited and where.

However, Malijevský adds: "An informed observer should know that what is exhibited in contemporary art galleries, is really not art..."

 

The concept of ART is difficult to define. However, I see negative phenomena in artistic practice. Especially, focusing on shocking the audience with various disgusting and brutal scenes. I can’t see any positive view of the future. The vision of progress, seeking new topics, new artistic rendering was the driving force of modernity. In postmodernism, it spanned into scepticism. As everything is allowed, nothing has meaning. Everything has no value, no positive purpose.

 

In the present, an artist can do whatever he wants, every pile of shards or a banana stuck to the wall can be passed off as art. There is no longer a moral consensus to call this a stupidity.

 

And thanks to the fact that postmodernism allows (even directly encourages) repetition and imitation such as Duchamp's urinal bowls, dismembered cows and stuffed sharks, such artworks are in the galleries.

In the Czech Republic, they are cats covered in epoxy or wolves in a gallery cage.

 

Unfortunately, we can see such exhibitions all over the world - from Prague, Vienna, Berlin or Paris, via Venice, New York to Tokyo and Seoul.

I've been to South Korea and Japan recently - and I've found almost all galleries exhibit variants of these nonsenses.

I was talking to a young artist in Seoul who exhibited plastic conglomerates of various teddy bears, balloons and plastic straws. He said he felt like a great artist because he was doing what was done in Europe.

 

Although postmodernism has enabled a huge plurality, multifacetedness, variability of opinions and means of expression, rather copying and mindless imitation of trends prevail in the art. Such as example above - various teddy bears or stuffed animals can be found in the paintings of all ‘great‘ artists. As well as some dirty grey blurred surfaces with occasional colourful spots are imitated repeatedly. Sometimes you can't deny that they have an abstract aesthetic, still the meaning of these messy spots is hard to find.

 

 

Similarly, reproductions of golden, silver or shiny green bunnies or swans by Jeef Kunz can be seen all over the world. They are sometimes small, sometimes large, in different colours and different prices. But otherwise, all the same!

Sometimes the imitating is done by famous artist alone - like Damien Hirst. In 2016, he created (it looks like on a factory line) tens of thousands of dotted images, one after the other. And now he shocked again by burning thousands of these unsold images.

 

The plurality of post-modernity has spiralled into conceptual fragmentation. Any coherence or unifying idea is missing. An artistic community is looking for some "New Identity", however still can't find it.

 

In visual art, the game of great art stands out. However, it is only about new urinal bowls or Drunken Old Women +.

 

If TRANSMODERNA is already here, perhaps a way out could be found and maybe the madness would calm down. Unfortunately, we must accept the diagnosis of the present time. On the top of that, everyone must accept the diagnosis for themselves…

 

Will the number of different views and perspectives continue? And how long? Perhaps until complete self-destruction? Alternatively, will a viable idea, a new worldview be found to take us to a completely different era with some new principles and ideals?

 

However, this is out of sight now. When I summed up all that has been said here, a small percentage of artistic creations can be called spiritual.

Such creations are hard to find, they are quiet, modest, tucked under mountains of self-confident managers and art gangsters who have appropriated all the world's great galleries and auction houses.

 

Therefore, I greatly appreciate the fact that I can be a part of the SPIRITUAL FESTIVAL, and that here we can look for some more meaningful goals and other spiritual dimensions of creation than the constant repetition of disgusting scenes and played-out provocations.

 

However, the search will be difficult. It is much easier to attract the attention of the viewer with some extravagance, than to get to the depth of the thought, to get closer to the basics of humanity, to convey a new opinion in an appropriate form.

And we really need a new goal for the whole world!

 

I don't know why no one realizes that we live in a very small piece of space, that life on our planet is a miracle in the surrounding interstellar entropy and it needs to be protected.

Everything in the universe is made of stars, we are also all dust from stars that came together by chance. Thus, it happened we live here, have our will and intelligence. We are probably the only civilization in the surrounding universe, and we do not appreciate it. Instead, we are always fighting for something, we destroy nature and ourselves.

 

Humanity should find a new direction, a new meaning of life, and it should gain strength for purification and new integration.

Enough of warfare, fighting against everyone and destroying planet.

We must agree on common values. It is in the interest of humanity.

Just cross that Rubicon…!

 

And art should participate in this search, rather it must participate!

A new sense of truth and beauty should be cultivated. We must return to principle of the universe.

 

If we can already find some new spiritual ideas, new artistic expressions, then we are on the right track.

 

This all is about the maturity of humanity and the maturity of each individual artist. Every work of an artist talks about his perception, opinions and his spiritual life.

Therefore, looking at the work itself, we can identify the diagnosis of the creator and the society he represents.

 

Unfortunately, we still see the borderline personality disorders rather than some empathy and healthy philosophical insight and heading to spirituality.

 

                          Mgr. Antonín Gavlas

                          2024

 

 

 

 

 

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José Pijoan:  Dějiny umění

Limit time. Dirk de Wachter

Tereza Matějčková (from the book God is dead, nothing is allowed)

Igor Malijevský: Vnitřní okruh,  z knihy Něco se muselo stát (Novela bohemica 2014)

Jiří David: katalog výstavy Nová intimita, Praha, 1991