Meet Factory (www. meetfactory.cz), Prague, June 6 – July 23 2009
Machalicky and Pfeiffer did a short-term exhibition in one of the studios of Meet Factory, a studio and exhibition space located on the outskirts of Prague. The general idea dealt with in the exhibition was the perception of architecture and urban space. The first thing I enjoyed when I entered the space was its emptiness. Single artworks were placed in carefully selected places, not interfering with each other.
There was one completely dark room with drawings in light boxes on the wall. Only the think lines of the drawings were visible. According to the provided text, these drawings were drawn with eyes closed, in complete darkness. They show memories, imagined realities. Subjective maps. Images arising out of the deep dark places in our minds.
The second space featured two videos. One of an architectural structure – an outline/blueprint – placed in the middle of a burning fire, all in black and white, in a loop, the architectural, man-made “order” and the natural “chaos” constantly mixing but never interacting with each other. The other video was based on drawings, drawings of how a city (Sofia) might look like, without seeing it. A continually re-modeled imaginary model.
Both the dark room and this video had the common feature of referring to imagination: The dark room referring to the imagination of the (known) past, the drawing video referring to the imagination of the unknown (to be seen in the future). The past consisted of blurred images, simple line drawings made by a shaking hand. The future on the other hand seemed clearer, drawn in right proportions according to the principles of perspective. Seemed as if our dreams and visions are shattered once they meet reality. What is left are flickering shadows of our past experience. Maybe this ambiguity was expressed in the video – fire flames and geometrical structure – located between these two works. The irreconcilable conflict between our imagination – utopia – and nature/reality.
The third space of the exhibition featured a work by Lukas Machalicky. It consisted of three quasi-light boxes – flat metal reliefs lit from behind. They were located in the front, the middle and the back of the room. I understood the main theme as an analysis of the relationship between distance and patterns in space. On entering the exhibition, the light box the closest to the viewer showed a rather abstract pattern – taken from the lights and shadows on a façade of a house. The mid-distance light box showed a vision-testing pattern which the doctor uses to test sight. The most distant light box showed a pattern which looked something like a gas mask filer to me. Later I found out it was supposed to represent a urinal. The point of this installation was the reversal of scale – the object which was supposed to be close was distant and the object which was supposed to be distant was close. I was not so sure about the choice of the tree motives as they seemed to take the work in different directions – urban space (architecture motive), sight itself (sight-testing pattern), and daily experience (urinal). The interaction between Pfeiffer’s and Machalicky’s contribution was one between imagination and reality. So daily experience is the direction of choice I guess. What impressed me about this installation was how perfectly it was done technically. The machine-cut metal sheets and equally-lit light boxes looked perfect.
On the whole I really appreciated this exhibition. I appreciated the set framework and connections between the pieces. On one hand Pfeiffer’s works were mutually interconnected. On the other hand the whole collection of his works was interconnected with Machalicky’s piece. It was a wonderful example of symbiosis. It’s a pity the exhibition was not on for a long time and has finished already. To make up for that, I provide a video walk-through below.