{"id":3601,"date":"2014-11-20T09:45:58","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T08:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vvp.avu.cz\/notebook\/archive\/"},"modified":"2022-04-27T22:15:29","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T21:15:29","slug":"archive","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/vvp.avu.cz\/en\/notebook\/archive\/","title":{"rendered":"Archive"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

All the published contributions are free to download (in original language and layout, minor changes are made in case of any errata needed) in a one year delay on Czech version<\/a> of this website.<\/p>\n

2021 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 30<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>The thirtieth issue of Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones <\/em>contains texts on a wide variety of topics. First off, in an article entitled \u201cArt and Democratisation\u201d, Sabina Muchov\u00e1 analyses the concept of aesthetic synthesis in Albrecht Wellmer\u2019s philosophy and, based on his ideas, considers how the creation and reception of artworks can reinforce democratic culture. In a long essay entitled \u201cCities at the Edge of Hospitals\u201d Vojt\u011bch M\u00e4rc looks at so-called geopathogenic zones. Among other things he examines how period dissatisfaction with the late socialist approach to housing was reflected in this phenomenon, as well as the more general crisis of a certain type of modernity. The third and final reviewed study in Se\u0161it 30\/2021 sees Mark\u00e9ta Jon\u00e1\u0161ov\u00e1 look back on the exhibition project Frisbee (2004\u20132006) and place this presentation of Czech video art within the context of globalisation. The text by Jozef Koval\u010dik entitled \u201cWhere do Contemporary Academies and Artistic Practice Collide?\u201d takes the form of a discussion or polemic, in which the author reflects critically on a system of art education based on the tradition of \u201cmaster classes\u201d. This issue concludes with a review by Ji\u0159\u00ed Tourek of the book by Peter Eisenman and Elisa Iturbe Lateness<\/em>, the theme of which is lateness as a tool of criticism in contemporary architecture.<\/p>\n

editorial<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sabrina Muchov\u00e1, Art and Democratization: On Some Aspects of Albrecht Wellmer\u00b4s Notion of Aesthetic Synthesis<\/strong>
\nAbstract<\/strong>: This paper focuses on the idea of the connection between the aesthetic experience of artworks and the democratization of society in several essays by Albrecht Wellmer, a philosopher of the Critical Theory tradition. Although Wellmer did not write a systematic aesthetic conception, he opens an important question regarding the character of art\u00b4s contribution to the process of establishing democracy in modern societies. Wellmer\u00b4s notion of aesthetic synthesis, i.e. the integration of heterogeneous experiences through an artwork, is used to explain on what basis Wellmer proposes that we should inderstand the aesthetic experience of arts as participating in the process of democratization. Wellmer argues that artwork\u00b4s aesthetic synthesis is open towards such aspects of reality, as well as of human experience, which are otherwise omitted or excluded by reason. Wellmer\u00b4s account of aesthetic synthesis and the effect it has on recipients is clarified in the first two parts of the paper; the conclusion then emphasizes the potential of Wellmer\u00b4s thoughts and suggests two possible ways of looking at the relationship of art and democracy.
\nKeywords<\/strong>: Albrecht Wellmer \u2013 aesthetic synthesis \u2013 aesthetic experience of art \u2013 democratization<\/p>\n

Vojt\u011bch M\u00e4rc, Geo-Pathogenic Zones as Architectural and Urbanistic Phenomenon<\/strong>
\nAbstract<\/strong>: This paper focuses on the phenomenon called “geopathology”. It searches for the theory and praxis as well as development in this minor field in the 1980s and 1990s in Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic. The debate on geo-pathogenic zones under the so-called normalization, perestroika and transformation periods is framed by sociopolitical coincidences with the crisis of modernity. Vojtech M\u00e4rc follows here a few different agents balancing on the unstable borders of medical, political or parapsychological discourses. The paper also focuses on key concepts of period debates on urbanism and architecture. The aim is to simultaneously explain the paranormal and the rational (scientific) discursive formations through the mutual connections between them. The author considers debates on geopathology to be a form of environmental critique (though not always fully developed at the theoretical level) while in collateral practical activities the identifies attempts to remedy the medical aspects of the built environment.<\/p>\n

Mark\u00e9ta Jon\u00e1\u0161ov\u00e1, Globalized Landscapes of Czech Audiovisual Art: A Study on Frisbee Exhibitions<\/strong>
\nAbstract<\/strong>: The paper analyses tendencies in the field of Czech audiovisual art, based on the case study of the international exhibition project titled Frisbee: Contemporary Czech Videoart and New Media<\/em>, which took place between 2004 and 2006. Anchored in the methodological framework of exhibition studies, it deploys the qualitative research methods of thematic data analysis and interviews. The paper sets out to clarify the relevance of the exhibition project Frisbee<\/em> in comparison to other formats of audiovisual art presentation in the Czech Republic at the turn of new millennium. It argues that the exhibition presented both a locally and internationally significant overview of audiovisual art produced by a generation of artists, who became active in the Czech art scene after the change of the regime in 1989. To conceptualise the increasingly globalised character of the moving image in the given period, the paper deploys Arjun Appadurai\u00b4s theory of global cultural flows. Applying his notion of mediascapes to audiovisual art, it analyses the artworks presented within the exhibitionary complex of Frisbee<\/em> in terms of its national and international situatedness. Based on a mutual comparison of represented artworks and their juxtaposition with an associated exhibition of Romanian audiovisual art, the complexity of representations and strategies is described, and the notion of “Czech” art questioned.
\nKeywords<\/strong>: audiovisual art \u2013 moving image \u2013 globalisation \u2013 national representation \u2013 exhibition history \u2013 Frisbee<\/p>\n

Jozef Koval\u010dik, Where Contemporary Academies\/Art Schools Collide with Artistic Praxis?<\/strong>
\nAbstract<\/strong>: Art schools are an integral part of the framework of institutions entering the formation of artistic practise and play one of the most important roles in the reproduction of so-called high culture. Nevertheless, academies have not undergone as radical criticism in recent decades as other art institutions. Studio teaching, which was introduced in art schools in the nineteenth century, continues to dominate. A few decades later, avant-garde artists also began to teach at art schools, but the method of teaching did not change in any significant way, while the ambition to create an individualistic work was further strengthened and persists to this day. In this essay, I will try to describe how the model of studio teaching came into being, what ideas it has been based on and what it is the bearer of. In the last part I will point out that the model of “masterclasses” is unsustainable for both traditional and (post) avant-garde artistic practices, but that it collides the most with the creation of participatory and environmental art projects.
\nKeywords<\/strong>: Art Schools (Academies) \u2013 Studio Teaching \u2013 Avant-Gardes \u2013 Participatory Art \u2013 Individualism<\/p>\n

Ji\u0159\u00ed Tourek, a review of the book by Peter Eisenman and Elisa Iturbe Lateness<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2020 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 29<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>The 29th issue of the Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones<\/em> looks at the application of Marxist approaches to art and art history. The guest editor Milena Bartlov\u00e1\u00a0 issued an open call for texts that examine the topic from a variety of different angles. Bartlov\u00e1 begins by summarising Marxist concepts of art history to date. Tom\u00e1\u0161 H\u0159\u00edbek then writes about Karel Teige and his original Marxist contribution to a theory of architecture. The third peer-reviewed essay is penned by the Polish art historian Agata Pietrasik and outlines the educational strategies of the Museum of Modern Art in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a<\/em>, the director of which from 1935 to 1965 was Marian Minich; the text is published in the original English version. The final essay is a detailed analysis of the theory of the nude in Czechoslovak photography of the 1950s and 1960s by Marianna Plac\u00e1kov\u00e1. The issue concludes with reviews of two books dealing with socialist realist art in Slovakia: Preru\u0161en\u00e1 piese\u0148<\/em> by Alexandra Kus\u00e1, and S\u00famrak doby<\/em> by Bohunka Koklesov\u00e1. They are reviewed by Johana Lomov\u00e1 and Hana Buddeus.<\/p>\n

editorial<\/strong><\/p>\n

Milena Bartlov\u00e1, Marxist art history: directive model or a radical inspiration?<\/a><\/strong>
\nAbstract<\/strong>: An attempt to define Marxism as an art historical methodology is specifically complicated by the post-communist predicament. The study aims at cleaning the way for a fresh analysis and provides a first ever survey of possible Marxist approaches that peaked between the 1940s and 1970s. It is based on the inherent materialist character of visual arts, “art history” cannot be confounded with aesthetics, philosophy and theory of art, and should also be set aside from the history of architecture. Marxist theory and methodology thus cannot be simply extended to art history from the texts by Marxs, Engels, Lenin and other theoreticians who dealt mainly with literature and general aesthetics. In this respect, Marxism proves to be largely incompatible with the history of art that is based on the Eurocentric tradition of “high quality art” inherently connected with the elites.
\nKeywords<\/strong>: Marxism \u2013 methodology of art history \u2013 20th century art history \u2013 Max Raphael \u2013 Meyer Schapiro \u2013 Otto K. Werckmeister<\/p>\n

Tom\u00e1\u0161 H\u0159\u00edbek, Ornament and Ideology. Karel Teige and the Theory of Architecture
\nAbstract: <\/strong>The purpuse of this paper is a charitable interpretation of Karel Teige\u00b4s architectural criticism which can be regarded as one of the few original contributions to the Marxist theory of art and culture to have come out of Czechoslovakia. Teige\u00b4s approach involves a dualism of architecture as art \u2013 which he rejects \u2013 and architecture as technology, or science \u2013 which he promotes. He based this preference on two theoretical elements of Marxism: the materialist theory of history \u2013 in particular the base\/superstructure model \u2013 and the critique of ideology. For Teige, it was only under the conditions of industrial capitalism the the growth of forces of production caused the separation between the utilitarian and aesthetic functions of architecture. Hence, only at this point it became possible to classify architecture as an element of the economic base. Ornament, as an aesthetic aspect of architecture, is ideology in the original Marxist sense of “false consciousness” \u2013 which implies that ideology can acquire both propositional and plastic form. Ornament in architecture hides the transient and contradictory nature of the building types such as banks, factories and parliaments, or, rather, the institutions housed in them. The paper also compares Teige\u00b4s contributions with the ideas of some later Marxist theorists of architecture (Lefebvre, Tafuri, Jameson). It appears that Teige is perhaps more rudimentary, yet clearer and more coherent than the recent authors. These virtues also enable us to detect the limits of Marxism in the field of the theory of architecture.
\nKeyword<\/strong>: Karel Teige \u2013 theory of architecture \u2013 Marxism \u2013 base and superstructure \u2013 ideology<\/p>\n

Agata Pietrasik, People\u00b4s Museum: Marxism, Art History and Institutional Practise
\n<\/strong>This article looks at the question of how the reception of Marxism changed the way the institution of the museum was perceived, especially in relation to the public and public space. It takes the specific example of the Museum of Art (Muzeum Sztuki) in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a, Poland, and its director Marian Minich. Though Marxism as such was one of the intellectual sources of the avant-garde in the 20th century, during the period of Stalinism, on the contrary, the avant-garde was dismissed as a manifestation of formalism in countries of the Soviet Bloc and committed socialist realism became canonical. In spite of this, Minich, director of the museum in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a from 1935 to 1965, managed to retain a link to the radical theses of the avant-garde regarding the abolition of the boundary between art and life, even within the constraints defined by state ideologies and propaganda. Minich, who creatively combined Marxism with the ideas of Heinrich W\u00f6lfflin, came up with a concept of educating the lay public that emphasised the historically conditioned development of the art form as opposed to the official emphasis on an artwork having content that was easy to understand. The article looks at both Minich\u2019s theoretical reflections, as well as the exhibition and popularising practice ensuing therefrom, which it places within the context of the time.
\nKeywords<\/strong>: Modern Art Museum \u2013 polish avantgarde \u2013 museum education department \u2013 exterior exhibitions \u2013 people\u00b4s museum<\/p>\n

Marianna Plac\u00e1kov\u00e1, The Socialist Nude, Marxism and Photography Theory in the 1960s<\/a><\/strong>
\nAbstract<\/strong>: After 1948, the visual representation of the naked female body was banned in socialist Czechoslovakia. According to the authorities, the female nude was inherently understood as “bourgeois” and “decadent”, contributing to the exploitation of women. As a result of the “thaw” after 1956, the nude was allowed again, first in the fine arts (sculpture, painting, graphics), later in the field of photography. Since then, interest in the nude grew so much that the representation of the naked female body became the most commont motif in Czechoslovak photography magazines during the 1960s. This development was accompanied by numerous discussions about how to represent the female body within the conditions of a socialist society. Contemporary theorists sought to formulate, on a Marxist basis, a specific, non-exploitative “socialist nude” which was to be distinguished from the nude emerging in Western capitalist countries. This article will analyse the contributions to the period discussion from photography theorists (Miloslav Kube\u0161, Ludv\u00edk Baran, J\u00e1n \u0160mok, V\u00e1clav Zykmund) who dealt with the formulation of the nude on a theoretical and practical level. At the same time, it will place these theoretical concepts in the international context, both its progressive side (Marxist critique of the female nude as an object of market exchange) and its conservative, traditional thinking about the form of the nude based on normativity and ideal proportions.
\nKeywords<\/strong>: nude \u2013 female body \u2013 Marxism \u2013 photography theory \u2013 J\u00e1n \u0160mok<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

2020 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 28<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>The 28th issue of the peer-reviewed journal Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones<\/em> offers a somewhat narrower range of essays and book reviews than is usual for non-thematic issues.
\nWe kick off with a review of Networking the Bloc <\/em>(2019) by Klara Kemp-Welch, in which Jan Wollner examines how the British researcher approaches the experimental art of the 1060s\u201380s. Johana Lomov\u00e1 then writes about the more serious side of the Golden Sixties and looks at how censorship operated in art journals of that time. The next three contributions think critically about the role of architecture. Michaela Jane\u010dkov\u00e1 writes about the concept of energetism as understood by Karel Jan\u016f. Karolina Jirkalov\u00e1 discusses the significance and impact of Resolution 333\/1982 on the construction industry, after which Kl\u00e1ra Pelou\u0161kov\u00e1 writes about the current boundaries and possibilities of architecture and design. This issue ends with a review by the Slovak theorist of architecture Mari\u00e1n Zervan of the anthology Euro-American Architectural Thinking <\/em>(2018).<\/p>\n

editorial<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jan Wollner, A review of of Networking the Bloc <\/em>(2019) by Klara Kemp-Welch<\/strong><\/p>\n

Johana Lomov\u00e1, Censorship of journals and newspapers specialised in visual arts. A case study on the relation between art and politics.
\n<\/strong>Abstract:<\/strong> The article discusses the act of censorship in texts on visual arts that were supposed
\nto be published in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. We argue that the complex system of
\ncensorship (diffused system) was not acting uniformly, however there were certain people
\nand events that were systematically pushed away from the public sphere. Nonetheless,
\nthe argument that certain work is politically unacceptable is not to be found. Special
\nattention is paid to the exhibition V\u00fdstava D that took place in 1964 in Prague. The
\nresearch is built on the archive material from Hlavn\u00ed spr\u00e1va tiskov\u00e9ho dohledu (Main
\noffice for press control) owned by the Archiv bezpe\u010dnostn\u00edch slu\u017eeb (Secret service
\narchive).
\nKeywords:<\/strong> censorship \u2013 artjournals \u2013 Czechoslovakia \u2013 V\u00fdstava D<\/p>\n

Michaela Jane\u010dkov\u00e1, Energetism as a Means of Turning Architecture into Science<\/strong>
\nin Karel Jan\u016f\u00b4s book Socialistick\u00e9 budov\u00e1n\u00ed
\n<\/strong>Abstract:<\/strong> In 1946, just after WWII Czech architect Karel Jan\u016f published his book Socialistick\u00e9 budov\u00e1n\u00ed: o\u010d p\u016fjde ve stavebnictv\u00ed a architektu\u0159e [Socialist building: What\u00b4s at Stake in Construction and Architecture]. As a former member of leftist groups PAS (Working architectural group) and the Union of Socialist Architects he pointed out his belief in a future
\nsocialist political system and the importance of and the role of architecture as a tool for
\nbuilding socialism. What is of more interest \u2013 he proposed to quantify all actions within
\narchitecture and the building industry on the basis of energetic loss. By this act architecture
\ncould become a part of a wider system of national economy. This paper examines the
\nroots of such attempts and casts light on the interwar acceptance of technocratic ideas
\nnot only within the Czechoslovakian interwar architectural avantgarde movement but also
\nwithin official state institutions, such as the Masaryk Academy of Labour. It suggests that
\ntechnocratic solutions were sought after within the whole political spectrum with little
\ncritical reflection. Later, many of the promoters from both political camps became key figures
\nfor postwar Czechoslovakian development and thus their standpoints further shaped
\nthe organization and programme of many nationalized companies and industrial fields.
\nKarel Jan\u016f became one of the most influential figures in architecture who made an attempt
\nto make the dreams of former avantgarde young leftists come true. In this manner, such
\nkey words of postwar architecture as industrialization, prefabrication and standardization,
\nmerged into the Czechoslovakian architectural vocabulary and paved the way not only for
\npanelaks but also for quite recent Czech austerity.
\nKeywords:<\/strong> energetism \u2013 Karel Jan\u016f \u2013 technocratism \u2013 Czechoslovakian architecture \u2013 Masaryk Academy of Labour<\/p>\n

Karolina Jirkalov\u00e1, Architecture policy and crisis of socialist city
\n<\/strong>Abstract:<\/strong> This article deals with the relationships and conflicts between building
\npractices, architectural discourse, public opinion and politics in the
\nperiod of late socialism in Czechoslovakia, especially in the Czech part of
\nthe federation. In the 1970s and 1980s, large scale prefabricated housing
\nestates were being built, but at the same time the resistance of experts
\nand the public to modernist, standardized and prefabricated construction
\nwas increasing and the qualities of a traditional town were lauded. The
\ndivide between professional discourse and, consequently, the demands of
\nsociety and the building reality was growing rapidly and undermined the
\nlegitimacy of the regime. Political leaders were aware of this and officially
\ndeclared the necessary changes, but the principles of construction until
\n1989 have hardly changed. The causes can be found in the economic and
\npolitical problems of the late socialist state, in the strong position of
\nconstruction companies and also in the very industrial foundations of
\nstate socialism, which would necessarily complicate the move away from
\nstandardization and prefabrication.
\nKeywords:<\/strong> history of architecture and construction \u2013 late socialism \u2013 architecture
\npolicy \u2013 Czechoslovakia<\/p>\n

Kl\u00e1ra Pelou\u0161kov\u00e1, Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Design between Service and Sustainability<\/strong>
\nAbstract:<\/strong> The article focuses on design in the context of the unsustainability of certain
\nphilosophical and economic concepts on which modern industrialized civilization is built.
\nIt addresses both problems of the excessive fragmentation of design as a discipline and
\nits problematic \u201cservitude\u201d to the dominant economic structures of the globalized world.
\nIt follows the notion of \u201cinvisibility\u201d in design to point to the insufficient reflection of
\nits infrastructural connections, implications that often lead to unsustainable practices.
\nThe article argues that in order to better understand the significance and consequences
\nof design, it needs to be understood in a broader context of material production or
\ninfrastructural planning. Therefore, it explores the issue of concrete as the ubiquitous
\nmaterial shaping the modern urban environment and water infrastructures that rely on
\nvast amount of concrete to build the supporting construction. As a counterpart to the
\nmassive structures, such as sophisticated dams and irrigation systems, it proposes an
\nexample of the retrofitting of the existing traditional water infrastructure in Eastern
\nIndia. The article calls for a complex approach to design that takes into account social,
\necological and political circumstances, that is adaptable and resilient, and puts forward
\nseveral theoretical concepts of design for sustainability reaching beyond the current
\npolitical and economic status quo.
\nKeywords:<\/strong> design \u2013 sustainability \u2013 invisibility \u2013 metabolic rift \u2013 infrastructure \u2013 concrete \u2013
\nagriculture \u2013 water management<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2019 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 27<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>The 27th issue of the Notebook explores a variety of themes. It begins with a review by Jitka \u0160osov\u00e1 of the anthology Art and Theory of Post-1989<\/em>, which contains translations of texts from the region of central and eastern Europe introduced by foreign researchers. This is followed by some reflections by Tom\u00e1\u0161 Pospiszyl on the tasks to be faced in processing the history of art of post-socialist countries. After two texts on the history of this region, Marianna Plac\u00e1kov\u00e1 examines the problematic concept of \u201cwomen\u2019s art\u201d from the 1980s to the present day. The following texts relate to the theme of identity. Lenka Vesel\u00e1 examines the intervention of technology in the body in the form of hormonal design, while Tom\u00e1\u0161 Jav\u016frek focuses on the cybernetisation of our identity via the data (and art) that we produce. Lucia Miklo\u0161kov\u00e1 deals with the history and usage of the concept of inframince<\/em> or infra-thin, which Marcel Duchamp introduced into the art sphere from pure mathematics. The final text in this diverse issue of the Notebook is by \u0160\u00e1rka Lojdov\u00e1, and reflects upon Arthur C. Danto\u2019s well known idea of the end of art, specifically on the sources of Danto\u2019s ideas.<\/p>\n

editoral<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jitka \u0160osov\u00e1, Problematic contradictions\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A review of an anthology: Art and Theory of Post-1989<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tom\u00e1\u0161 Pospiszyl, New Tasks for the History of Art of the Eastern Europe in the Socialist Period<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong> For the past twenty years, art historians have subjected Eastern European art to intense study. The way in which this art has been studied so far requires new impulses: From local neo-avant-garde we should re-orient our interest towards so-called official art. If Eastern Europe in the years 1945\u20131989 can be understood as a kind of lost civilization of socialism, then the author proposes calling that civilization\u2019s cultural production \u2018socialist art\u2019. This term should above all describe an affiliation with a particular period in history and the specific social conditions under which this art was made, regardless of the artist\u2019s style or ideological beliefs. Specific topics suggested for attention are, among others, institutional conditions of socialist art, economics of socialist art, the concept and social background of the socialist artist and the dynamics of the various layers of socialist art, from pro-regime to grey area to Underground.<\/p>\n

Reworked from a presentation given at the conference \u2018Situating Narratives\u2019. Strategies of\u00a0History Writing in Eastern European Art, Institutul prezentului, Bucharest, 2.\u20133. 11.\u00a02018<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0history of art \u2013 Eastern Europe \u2013 official art \u2013 socialist art
\n<\/strong>Author teaches at Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Marianna Plac\u00e1kov\u00e1, Czechoslovak Experience as a Starting Point. Feminist Art in the Period of State\u00a0<\/strong>Socialism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong>\u00a0In this article, the author formulates the category of feminist art in Czechoslovakia from the 1960s to the 1980s. She shows specific forms and contexts in which the artworks originated, based on the\u00a0political, cultural-social and material situation, and defines female artists as active subjects that\u00a0critically approached gender discourses in the period of state socialism. The article takes a critical\u00a0approach to the post-socialist theoretical and artistic discourse and its relation to feminism and the\u00a0position of female artists on the pre-1989 art scene.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>:\u00a0feminist art \u2013 \u2018female art\u2019 \u2013 feminism \u2013 feminist identity \u2013 state socialism \u2013 Czechoslovakia<\/p>\n

Author is a PhD. candidate at Art History Institute of tha Philosophical Faculty of teh Charles University in Prague.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lenka Vesel\u00e1, Hormonal Design: Synthetic Sex Hormones and the Management of Living<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong> Sex hormones are a class of hormones linked to sexuality and procreation. They are biochemical messengers endowed with the capacity to regulate appearance as well as the thoughts, feelings and desires of living organisms \u2014 by affecting production of sex-specific traits and by exerting influence over the whole body, including the brain and its functions. The sex hormone network of a living body consists of hormones that it itself produces in a situated process of endogenous hormone production, and of exogenous hormones absorbed from the environment or as a part of a pharmaceutical intervention. The article examines the complex role that sex hormones perform in our lives and, in particular, how synthetic sex hormones have transformed our hormonal system into a matter of design. What is hormonal design and what does it have to offer us?<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>:\u00a0hormonal design \u2014 synthetic sex hormones \u2014 management of living \u2014 gendered\u00a0molecules \u2014 hormonal fascism \u2014 hormonal capitalism \u2014 hormonal labour \u2014 speculative\u00a0design \u2014 critical fabulation \u2014 speculative feminism \u2014 material feminisms \u2014 hormonal\u00a0justice \u2014 hormonal anthropocene<\/p>\n

Author is a PhD. candidate at Faculty of Visual Arts of the Technical university in Brno.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tom\u00e1\u0161 Jav\u016frek, Dividuum, data, tatatata<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong> It has been more than a hundred years since the Foundational Crisis of Mathematics emerged and almost a hundred years since Alan Turing constructed the a-machine to disprove David Hilbert\u2019s program. Since these events, the principles of computable theory have surrounded the world in the form of billions of interconnected digital machines whose inner logic determines our daily lives in an unprecedented way. The study of the inner logic of such ubiquitous medium as the digital medium could be seen as an appropriate tool for artists working on, within or through this complex digital environment. The following study reflects the historical events that have led to the emergence of digital phenomena and discusses the specific interaction between humans and digital machines in terms of dividuum. Finally, it also designs a model for an exploration of the dividuum. This designed model is later constructed on the top of the graph theory as a non-human, technologically determined agent whose computable logic can trigger autonomous events and thus be a part of a creation of reality.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>:\u00a0autopoiesis, complexity \u2013 digital art \u2013 digital environment \u2013 dividuum \u2013 data \u2013 emergence \u2013 technological determinism \u2013 warfare<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lucia Miklo\u0161kov\u00e1, Marcel Duchamp’s Idea of an Infinitely Thin Difference<\/strong><\/p>\n

Absctract:<\/strong> The paper explores the work of Marcel Duchamp, especially the enigmatic category of\u00a0infra-mince<\/em>. Duchamp mentioned this exclusively conceptual category, which by its very nature escapes any physical grasp, only in hints in his notes. It is known that Duchamp was interested in the theme of the fourth dimension, especially in regard to the study of the French mathematician Emil Pascal Jouffret and his treatise Trait\u00e9 \u00e9l\u00e9mentaire de g\u00e9om\u00e9trie \u00e0 quatre dimensions<\/em> from 1903, describing the way four-dimensional hyperbodies exist. He also adopted the idea of an \u2018infinitely thin layer\u2019, extending between our three-dimensional space and a four-dimensional continuum of Jouffret. The imaginative (conceptual, performative or otherwise transformative) basis of Duchamp’s work lies in the mathematical-geometric conception of the fourth dimension. Duchamp imagined a world we live in as one of shadows cast by four dimensional bodies. Although Joufferet did not believe in seeing the fourth dimension, as our senses have already adapted to three-dimensional physical space, Duchamp would try to display it in the form of an image of apparition.<\/em> He would find an analogy for perceiving four-dimensionality in the principle of the mirror. The mirror image perfectly interprets the illusion of the third dimension in the plane. Several mirror reflections become an analogy for a part of the four-dimensional perspective. Duchamp notices inversion as the law of mirroring. The reality rotates around its axis and changes its orientation in this movement.
\nTherefore, Duchamp is interested in these mechanisms of change and transformation, or dissimilation, causing the movement inside a sign. Finally, infra-mince can be another name for concept, which appears to be the key to the methodological schedule of author’s work to be studied as advised by Duchamp.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0Marcel Duchamp \u2013 infra-mince \u2013 fourth dimension \u2013 dimension \u2013 continuum \u2013 shadow \u2013 mirror \u2013\u00a0hinge \u2013 allegory<\/p>\n

Author is art historian and curator based in Bratislava.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u0160\u00e1rka Lojdov\u00e1, On the Problem of the Origin of Arthur C. Danto\u2019s End-of-Art Thesis<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong> In 1984 American philosopher Arthur C. Danto proclaimed that art had come to an end. This assertion is known as the end-of-art thesis. Although it has been more than thirty years since the original paper \u2018The End of Art\u2019 was published, philosophers have continued to be interested in analyses of the thesis and seek to provide new ways of its interpretation. However, the question of the origin of the thesis seems to be overshadowed by different topics. Danto\u2019s thesis has still been identified with Hegel\u2019s idea that \u2018art, considered in its highest vocation, is and remains for us a thing of the past\u2019. Contrary to this interpretation, I shall argue that Danto\u2019s claim that art came to an end was not inspired solely by Hegel but that the form of the thesis was a result of his reading of Thomas Kuhn, Alexandre Koj\u00e8ve and Josiah Royce. With regard to Hegel, this article shall demonstrate that Danto did not find the inspiration in Hegel\u2019s Aesthetics<\/em> but in his Phenomenology of Spirit<\/em>. Moreover, as I shall show that Danto\u2019s understanding of Hegel\u2019s philosophy was shaped by Hegel\u2019s interpreters rather than by a systematic research in idealist philosophy. In addition, a significant role was played by Danto\u2019s own ideas on the philosophy of history, especially his conception of narrative. In consequence, I believe that Danto\u2019s end-of-art thesis makes a more original contribution to the philosophy of art than is usually supposed.<\/p>\n

Keywords:\u00a0<\/strong>analytical aesthetics \u2013 Arthur Danto \u2013 the end of art \u2013 philosophy of history \u2013 narrative \u2013 Hegel \u2013 Thomas S. Kuhn<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2019 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 26<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The twenty-sixth issue of Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones<\/em> revisits the history of exhibitions, which can be seen as a prism through which to look at art of the second half of the twentieth century. It contains an interview conducted by Terezie Nekvindov\u00e1 with the curator and critic Ludmila Vachtov\u00e1, who used to draw up the programme not only for the gallery Na Karlov\u011b n\u00e1m\u011bst\u00ed, but also for the Gallery Plat\u00fdz, and participated in the preparation of a series of exhibitions in Liberec in the 1960s. There is also a text by M\u00e1ria Ori\u0161kov\u00e1 on two exhibitions of American art that took place in Czechoslovakia in 1947 and 1969. This is followed by a study of Ji\u0159\u00ed Valoch in which the author, Helena Musilov\u00e1, examines an exhibition that Valoch prepared for the Brno House of Arts in 1980. Eva Skopalov\u00e1 and Marianna Plac\u00e1kov\u00e1 then focus on women in art from the 1950s\u201380s, both those that created and those that featured in their paintings. The issue closes with a text by Alise Tifentale on strategies of exhibiting photography at FIAP 1956.<\/p>\n

Specialized studies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI was madly curious.\u201d An Interview with Ludmila Vachtov\u00e1
\n<\/strong>Terezie Nekvindov\u00e1<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>Ludmila Vachtov\u00e1, born in Czechoslovakia in 1933, is an art historian and critic. Since the late 1950s she has been an uncompromising curator and gallerist with precise ideas on the management of the institutions she was in charge of. She also gained international recognition as a specialist on Franti\u0161ek Kupka. After having emigrated to Z\u00fcrich in 1972 she published in Neue Z\u00fcricher Zeitung<\/em> and Frankfurter Allgemenine Zeitung<\/em> and curated many exhibitions in Switzerland.
\nThis interview concentrates on the second half of the 1960s. At first, attention is payed to the joint curatorial activities of Vachtov\u00e1 and Hana Seifertov\u00e1. The outcome of this collaboration was a series of exhibitions of sculpture by artists from Czechoslovakia and Austria. For the first time, contemporary sculpture was taken out of galleries and shown outdoors, in the urban and natural spaces of the city of Liberec.
\nAt the same time Vachtov\u00e1 curated at two Prague galleries. One, which was more experimental, concentrated on contemporary trends and specifically on various forms of abstract art, was Galerie Na Karlov\u011b n\u00e1m\u011bst\u00ed. At the other, Galerie Plat\u00fdz, Vachtov\u00e1 tried to develop the concept of a commercial gallery with a rich accompanying programme. Associated with the liberalization tendencies of the 1960s, these activities ended with the dawn of the so-called normalization period after 1969.
\nThe interview was conducted in the form of written letters during the period of 2015\u20132018.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong> exhibition history \u2013 curating \u2013 60. l\u00e9ta \u2013 sculpture<\/p>\n

Ludmila Vachtov\u00e1 is art critic and curator, since 1972 living and working in Zurich.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nekvindov\u00e1 is art historian, she works at Academic Research Centre of Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. The Interview is partal output of the grant \u201eM\u00e9dium v\u00fdstavy v\u00a0\u010desk\u00e9m um\u011bn\u00ed \u201e1957\u20131997\u201c (GA\u010cR 16-15446S).
\n<\/em>terezie.nekvindova@avu.cz<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

US Modern Art Exhibitions in Communist Czechoslovakia and the Ambivalent Agenda of Cultural Diplomacy
\n<\/strong>Maria Ori\u0161kov\u00e1<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>The paper examines the reception of American art exhibited in Czechoslovakia from the late 1940s tothe 1960s and reflects on the goals of US cultural diplomacy. This period was bookmarked by the two major, and only, exhibits, Advancing American Art<\/em> (Prague, Brno, Bratislava, 1947) and The Disappearance and Reappearance of the Image: Painting in the United States since 1945 <\/em>(Bratislava, Prague, 1969). Organized within the framework of \u201ainter-state cultural agreements\u2018, these traveling exhibitions were official undertakings of the highest state interests. Implemented under strict state supervision, they played a specific role in the broader context of Cold-War ideological conflicts. At the same time, they were not generally seen as an instrument of US propaganda in Central Europe. On the contrary, both art critics and the general public welcomed these exhibitions as a genuine effort toward better understanding, cooperation, and the bringing together of the two nations. In retrospect, contradictions that textured much of these cultural diplomatic exhibitions came to be recognized. In the specific context of Czechoslovakia during communism, America officially functioned as an ideological Other. However, the anti-communist opposition gradually formed during the 1960s was constructed not by negation of the Western\/US Other but rather by negation of the Soviet Other. At this juncture two narratives in relation to the USA and its political system, lifestyle, art and culture can be recognized: cultural diplomacy as a Trojan horse or foreign policy and\/or an altruistic line of cultural diplomacy.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>: US modern art exhibitions \u2013 cultural diplomacy exhibitions \u2013 travelling exhibitions \u2013 cold war \u2013 art as propaganda \u2013 altruistic line of cultural diplomacy \u2013 Czechoslovakia \u2013 exhibition Advancing American Art<\/em> \u2013 exhibition The Disappearance and Reappearance of the Image: Paining in the United States since 1945<\/em><\/p>\n

Author is art historian, she teaches at Trnava University, Slovakia.
\n<\/em>maria.oriskova@truni.sk<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sou\u010dasn\u00e1 \u010desk\u00e1 kresba \/ Contemporary Czech Drawing<\/em><\/strong>: Ji\u0159\u00ed Valoch and the Possibility of Organizing a Collective Exhibition during the so-called Normalization Period
\n<\/strong>Helena Musilov\u00e1<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>In 1972 Ji\u0159\u00ed Valoch was employed as a curator by the The Brno House of Arts \u2013 the only Kunsthalle-based institution in then Czechoslovakia. The director Adolf Kroupa and his colleagues were trying to combine the tradition of the interwar avant-garde with the finest foreign art and to give space to ongoing trends. Valoch had considerable curatorial experience already and a network of contacts abroad \u2013 but at the same time, he was only 26 years old, which made him one of the young, promising \u2018cadres\u2019, seemingly unburdened by the past. Thanks to his professional and personal partnership with Gerta Posp\u00ed\u0161ilov\u00e1 (the director of The Brno House of Arts until 1975), he had relatively substantial possibilities to organize exhibitions both at home and abroad, as well as exhibitions of his own work.
\nThe theme of the paper is the preparation of the Sou\u010dasn\u00e1 \u010desk\u00e1 kresba<\/em> [Contemporary Czech Drawing<\/em>] exhibition (The Brno House of Arts, 1980). Valoch’s original intention was to present a wide range of approaches to drawing, ranging from the traditional to project-based and conceptual art. It should also have included artists who could not exhibit in any other official exhibition places, mainly in Prague. The article describes the methods of curtailing the original intention, the work of the approval committee, and the exclusion of certain artists. In the end, the realization of the exhibition brought Valoch noticeable sanctions (a ban on publishing his texts in exhibition catalogues and newspapers for a few years and compulsory tasks at The House of Arts). The paper also shows that the possibilities of collective exhibitions varied a lot in the so-called Eastern bloc countries \u2013 some collective exhibition projects in which Valoch participated or which he conceived in Poland in the 1970s can be seen as a counterpart.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong> curatorial activities \u2013 Ji\u0159\u00ed Valoch \u2013 exhibiton Contemporary Czech Drawing<\/em> \u2013 The Brno House of Arts \u2013 artistic scene of 1970\u2019s \u2013 exhibition Teksty wizualne<\/em><\/p>\n

Author is a curator at Museum Kampa. The study is a partial output of the project \u201cJi\u0159\u00ed Valoch \u2013 kur\u00e1tor, teoretik, sb\u011bratel 1972 \u2013 2001\u201d (GA\u010cR 14-32510S).
\n<\/em>helena.musilova@gmail.com<\/a> \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Women Exhibiting, Women Exhibited. The Official Politics of Art Exhibitions during the So-Called Period of Normalization
\n<\/strong>Marianna Plac\u00e1kov\u00e1, Eva Skopalov\u00e1<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>The authors of the present paper will focus on the official Czechoslovak politics of art exhibitions during the so-called period of normalization in the context of gender politics. Following several examples, they discuss the outcomes of gender politics based on the percentage contribution of women to art exhibitions and their involvement in art institutions. Simultaneously, they debate the phenomenon of the idea of gender equality promoted through art exhibition \u2013 annual shows to celebrate International Women\u2019s Day, and the exhibitions dedicated to International Women\u2019s Year, designated by the United Nations to 1975. The Czechoslovak socialist gender politics that in the 1970s and 1980s promoted a pro-family agenda, as well as essentialist discourse of the period, both of which deeply influenced art exhibition politics, art criticism and also art production will also be addressed.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>: state socialism \u2013 official politics of art exhibitions \u2013 \u201cnormalization\u201d \u2013 Interantional Women\u2019s Day \u2013 International Women\u2019s Year \u2013 gender politics \u2013 essentialist discourse<\/p>\n

Authors are Prague based art historians and PhD. students at Institute of Art History at the Charles University in Prague<\/em>.
\nmarianna.placakova@gmail.com<\/a>, e.skopalova@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FIAP Biennial in Photokina 1956<\/em>: A Revolt Againts the Unvesrsal Language of Photography
\n<\/strong>Alise Tifentale<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>Photography is a universal language, \u201cunderstood on all five continents, irrespective of race, creed, culture or social level\u201d\u2014this announcement by Maurice van de Wyer, the president of the International Federation of Photographic Art (F\u00e9d\u00e9ration internationale de l’art photographique, FIAP), echoed numerous other assertions made at the opening of the fifth annual photography trade fair and exhibition complex Photokina 1956 in Cologne, West Germany, from September 29 to October 7, 1956. The leaders of the U.S. and West Germany, international organizations such as UN and UNESCO, photography industry, and transnational community of photographers united in FIAP all praised photography as a universal language. Photokina 1956, however, revealed two radically different understandings of such a language. On one hand, it denoted Western European and U.S. magazine photography whose success and popularity was driven by the market forces of the publishing and photo industries as well as by the support from politicians. On the other, it entailed numerous, idiosyncratic visual languages coming from photographers from thirty-six countries in Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa represented in the fourth FIAP Biennial, which was included in the program of Photokina 1956. This article views the intervention of FIAP in the Photokina 1956 exhibition through a sociological lens that focuses on the contested social status of photographers and the power inequality in postwar photography.<\/p>\n

Keywords: <\/strong>Photography history \u2013 Exhibition history \u2013 Photokina 1956 \u2013 FIAP \u2013 Sociology of Art<\/p>\n

Author is a New York-based art and photography historian. She works at Graduate Centre CUNY, she is an author of <\/em>Photography as Art in Latvia, 1960 \u2013 1969 (2011).
\n<\/em>atifentale@gradcenter.cuny.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2018 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 25<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>This issue of the magazine, guest edited by Pavl\u00edna Morganov\u00e1, examines the history, format and role of exhibitions in contemporary cultural production. Since the nineteenth century, the medium of the exhibition has been a means of presenting artworks and an important mediator of communication between artist and viewer. The role of the exhibition grew in significance throughout the twentieth century, and at present it represents the main medium for the perception, legitimisation and institutionalisation of art. The individual texts contained in this edition will offer a comprehensive overview of the topic. Terezie Nekvindov\u00e1 examines the format and role of biennials during the 1960s, while Ana Bilbao attempts a definition of a new type of independent organisation. Pavl\u00edna Morganov\u00e1 writes about a phenomenon that has received little in the way of coverage, namely exhibitions held in private apartments during the seventies and eighties in Czechoslovakia. Against the backdrop of photographic exhibitions as such, Tereza Rudolf looks at the presentation of photography in Czechoslovakia outside the gallery space during the seventies and eighties. The figure of the curator as spiritus agens<\/em> forms the subject of the essay by Jana P\u00edsa\u0159\u00edkov\u00e1 on the activities of Ji\u0159\u00ed Valoch at the Brno House of Arts during the late sixties and early seventies. The first of two thematic issues of Se\u0161it<\/em> devoted to the medium of the exhibition concludes with the translation of an inspiring text by Jan Verwoert entitled \u201c\u2019The Curious Case of Biennial Art\u201d.<\/p>\n

Specialized studies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe World Wants Biennials\u201c: Czech and Slovak Art at Large-Scale Exhibitions between 1965\u20131970
\n<\/strong>Terezie Nekvindov\u00e1<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This paper examines the participation of Czechoslovakia at the huge art shows held during the latter half of the 1960s. In particular it looks at the Venice Biennale, the Sao Paolo Biennial and the Biennale de Paris, at which Czechoslovakia often featured by means of national pavilions or areas, and compares these shows with the selection of Czechoslovak artists by foreign curators for the fourth documenta<\/em> in Kassel in 1968. The text focuses on how the exhibits were presented at these exhibitions, the mechanisms for conceiving of these occasions, and the position of the curators or commissioners. The form and content of the Czechoslovak expositions, which were created by a relatively small circle of people, were relatively conservative, both within the framework of the exhibitions as a whole and in relation to the domestic art scene (especially in the case of the Venice and Sao Paolo biennales). Nevertheless, compared with both earlier and later presentations at the same events, Czechoslovak participation during the latter half of the sixties was progressive in character and featured good quality exhibits. At the end of the decade this was manifest in the selection of a smaller number of artists, a greater emphasis placed on the work of younger artists, and a broadening out of the media represented (which now included environmental and light-kinetic work). On rare occasions, poorly connected national exhibitions were replaced by an exhibition conceived of as an integrated whole. I argue that the politically and socially turbulent period around 1968 (both in Czechoslovakia and around the world), which was manifest in the organisation and form of the biennales examined, was not reflected in the Czechoslovak presentations. It was biennale-style events that allowed Czechoslovak artists to see how they fared within an international context and mediated information on current trends for both artists and curators. In contrast, the discussions just starting in the West on the very concept of the biennale did not yet feature on the Czechoslovak art scene.<\/p>\n

Key words: <\/strong>Venice<\/em> Biennale<\/em> \u2013 Sao<\/em> Paolo<\/em> Biennial<\/em> \u2013 Biennale<\/em> de<\/em> Paris<\/em> \u2013 documenta<\/em> \u2013 Czechoslovak pavilion \u2013 large-scale exhibitions \u2013 exhibition history<\/p>\n

Author is art historian at Academic Research Centre of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
\n<\/em>terezie.nekvindova@avu.cz<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Invisible Sculpture, Transcendent Exhibition and Programmed Art: The Curatorial Activities of Ji\u0159\u00ed Valoch during the Sixties and Seventies
\n<\/strong>Jana P\u00edsa\u0159\u00edkov\u00e1<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This paper examines the curatorial activities of Ji\u0159\u00ed Valoch through an analysis of the exhibitions Computer Graphics<\/em> (1968) and White Space in a White Space<\/em> (1974). It also looks at his curatorial work between 1967\u20131974 as a member of the association Young Friends of Fine Arts. The exhibition of computer graphics was the first of its kind in the Eastern bloc and took place six months before the famous Cybernetic Serendipity<\/em> exhibition in London. White Space in a White Space<\/em> was the joint project of three artists, Milo\u0161 Laky, Stano Filko and J\u00e1n Zavarsk\u00fd, and took the form of a one-day exhibition at the Brno House of Arts on 18 February 1974. Ji\u0159\u00ed Valoch not only wrote the theoretical text published in the exhibition catalogue along with a manifesto, but also, along with\u00a0Gerta Posp\u00ed\u0161ilova, gallery director, secretly made it possible for the three artists to exhibition in the interstice between two other events. The association Young Friends of Fine Arts was founded in 1960 at the Brno House of Arts. On the pretext of teaching, Valoch was permitted to organise exhibitions and put together publications focusing on land art and action art, which it would have otherwise been difficult to arrange at a time when the grip of normalisation was hardening. As far back as seventies, Ji\u0159\u00ed Valoch had realised that the global reach of conceptual art was associated with a new type of distribution and presentation of works, and that documentation was a crucial tool, by means of which such art could enter collections and institutional operations.<\/p>\n

Keywords:\u00a0<\/strong>the curatorial activities of Ji\u0159\u00ed Valoch \u2013 Computer graphics \u2013 Cybernetic Serendipity<\/em> \u2013 New Tendencies \u2013 White Space in a White Space<\/em> \u2013 Young Friends of Visual Art \u2013 the Brno House of Arts \u2013 documentation \u2013 conceptual art \u2013 invisible sculpture by Joseph Beuys<\/p>\n

Author is a curator in Moravian gallery in Brno. The study is a partial output of elaborating on Ji\u0159\u00ed Valoch Archive in Moravian gallery in Brno.
\n<\/em>pisarikova.jana@seznam.cz<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Private Home Exhibitions: A Medium of Unofficial Art during the Seventies and Eighties.
\n<\/strong>Pavl\u00edna Morganov\u00e1<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>Until recently, ideal home exhibitions tended to be overlooked by Czech art historians. In fact, during the normalisation period of the seventies and eighties in particular, such events played an important role on the unofficial art scene. By reconstructing previously almost unheard of ideal home exhibitions by Karel Miler, V\u00e1clav Stratil, Milan Kozelka, V\u00e1clav Skrepl, Martin John and others, the author analyses the development of this medium.<\/p>\n

Keywords: <\/strong>home exhibitions \u2013 normalisation \u2013 unofficial art \u2013 Czech art \u2013 seventies \u2013 eighties<\/p>\n

Author is art historian and head of Academic Research Centre of Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. The research for this study was supported by grant \u201cM\u00e9dium v\u00fdstavy v \u010desk\u00e9m um\u011bn\u00ed 1957\u20131997\u201d (GA\u010cR 16-5446S).
\n<\/em>pavlina.morganova@avu.cz<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Second Plan: Ruins and Photography Exhibitions in the Eighties<\/strong>
\nTereza Rudolf<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This paper examines the possibilities of photography’s presentation in non-gallery venues during the 1980s and 90s in Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic. It examines the relationship between venue and medium and connects photography’s theoretical framework in the latter half of the 20th century with the Czech art scene. It offers new ways of interpreting photography through the exhibitions analysed and highlights a shift in the way we understand photography within a particular time frame depending on its installation and presentation. This shift is from photography as document to photography as artistic artefact. Exhibitions serve to institutionalise the medium, offering photography a new aura and originality. These categories encounter the reality of decaying places, which function as a metaphor for the fragmentation and the multiplicity of thinking. This paradox is significant within the period under examination. This text is based on a diploma thesis dealing with the same topic.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>: exhibition \u2013 photography \u2013 installation \u2013 framework \u2013 ruin \u2013 eighties and nineties \u2013 postmodernity \u2013 genius loci \u2013 unofficial art \u2013 public art<\/p>\n

Author is curator and art critic, she is participating on Fotograf Festival, Prague.
\n<\/em>tereza.rudolf@fotografnet.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Micro-Curating: The Role of SVAOs (Small Visual Arts Organisations) in the History of Exhibition-Making
\n<\/strong>Ana Bilbao<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>The present paper discusses the emergence and development of Small Visual Arts Organisations (SVAOs) in various parts of the world from the 1990s to the present. SVAOs are structurally small, non-profit spaces that are dedicated both to the production and to the dissemination of contemporary art. They are characterised by their interest in the local community in which they are located, as well as in diverse urban issues ranging from new technologies to the social art practices in their cities. In spite of the potential practical and ideological similarities with artist-run spaces, community arts organisations, and New Institutions, I argue that SVAOs are a curatorial phenomenon in their own right and, as such, represent a missing piece in the recent history of exhibition making.<\/p>\n

Keywords:\u00a0<\/strong>Small Visual Arts Organisations \u2013 exhibition-making \u2013 contemporary curating \u2013 art institutions \u2013 collectivity \u2013 community<\/p>\n

Author <\/em>is an editor of\u00a0<\/em>Afterall Journal\u00a0<\/em>and a Research Fellow at the Afterall Research\u00a0<\/em>Centre at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Her research focuses on the\u00a0<\/em>history of exhibition-making and she specialises\u00a0in the emergence and proliferation of SVAOs (Small Visual Arts Organisations) from the\u00a0nineties to present in different parts of the world.
\n<\/em>a.bilbao@afterall.org<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Curious Case of Biennial Art
\n<\/strong>Jan Verwoert<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This is a translation of a text by the critic, curator and occasional artist Jan Verwoert. Verwoert both defines biennial art, i.e. the works most frequently on show at the large contemporary art festivals held every two years, and then describes the approach taken by artists to such work. He discerns three main archetypal figures: the joker, the thief and the Girl\/Boy Scout. Finally, Verwoert addresses the question of what type of communication is possible through the medium of the biennale, i.e. by what means can the organisation of and participation at large expositions be productive in light of the current state of the globalised world linked with (neo)liberal (late) capitalism. In conclusion Verwoert writes that, if we are to understand communication not as a means of delivering content but more as an environment in which limits can be declared, then we can view the biennale (and similar global exhibitions) as a suitable place for such communication.<\/p>\n

Keywords: <\/strong>biennale \u2013 contemporary art \u2013 globalisation \u2013 communication<\/p>\n

This essay was originally published as \u201cThe Curious Case of Biennial Art\u201d, in: Elena FILIPOVIC \u2013 Marieke VAN HAL \u2013 Solveig \u00d8VSTEB\u00d8 (eds.), The Biennial Reader: An Anthology on Large-Scale Perennial Exhibitions of Contemporary Art<\/em>, Berlin: Hatje Cantz 2010, pp 184\u2013197.<\/p>\n

Jan Verwoert is Berlin-based art critic and curator.
\n<\/em>verwoert@cityweb.de<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2018 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 24<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>The 24th<\/sup> issue of Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones<\/em> examines the question of what we deem new in art and why. Five authors offer answers, each from a different perspective. The philosophy and art theorist Kamil N\u00e1b\u011blek looks at how we might think of the artwork as an exemplar. He searches for parallels between Giorgio Agamben\u2019s exemplary paradigm and Walter Benjamin\u2019s concept of the dialectical image. The film theorist Sylva Pol\u00e1kov\u00e1 looks at light-kineticism in the work of Zden\u011bk Pe\u0161\u00e1nek. Alexandra Moralesov\u00e1 investigates the contemporary phenomenon of art film laboratories as a platform for experimental filmmaking in which traditional film material receives a new lease of life after the digital transformation of the industrial production of moving images. The last article in this issue is by Adam Franc and looks at the history of software art. Like the previous two texts it attempts to move away from the history of a specific medium and instead to reflect upon the general assumptions behind one of the spheres of art production at present. The issue ends with Josef Vojvod\u00edk\u2019s review of a monograph written by Rey Michalov\u00e1 on Karel Teige. While the new inevitably ages, the return of the old is never simply repetition.<\/p>\n

Specialized studies:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Artwork as Exemplary Paradigm and Dialectical Image: An Analogy between the Concepts of Giorgio Agamben and Walter Benjamin
\n<\/strong>Kamil N\u00e1b\u011blek<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>The consideration relates to the concept of paradigm in its dimension of a system and its dimension of an exemplum. In this context, Giorgio Agamben\u2019s interpretation of paradigm in the sense of an exemplum is mentioned. It is understood as a specific kind of analogical knowledge that avoids dichotomous categories. Every work of art, whether historical (i.e., \u201ccanonized\u201d) or contemporary, actually works in terms of the paradigmatic exemplum. Contemporary works of art could be shown as a paradigm or an exemplum, whose \u201cvalue\u201d or \u201cmeaning\u201d cannot be given by an identifiable rule, but by its own exemplification, its own expression. Historical works of art can be interpreted not only in their dimension of the system, but they can be also reinterpreted as the paradigmatic exemplum. To the notion of exemplary paradigm, I add the concept of the dialectical image of Walter Benjamin. I try to find similarities and analogies in both approaches. Their comparison allowed me to reflect the nature of the work of art and its relation to the interpretative and historical context.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0exemplary paradigm \u2013 dialectical image \u2013 analogical thinking \u2013 aesthetic judgment \u2013 narrative
\nThe author teaches at the Faculty of Art and Architecture at Technical University in Liberec.
\n<\/em>kamil.nabelek@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Resonance of Czech Luminokinetism
\n<\/strong>Sylva Pol\u00e1kov\u00e1<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>In this study I focus on Czech luminokinetism as a practice integrating a moving image whose media automatisms resonate in the Czech audiovisual sphere across generations. Because this is an interdisciplinary practice whose forms and operations are influenced by a host of dynamics, the initial film perspective is supplemented by related themes from the spheres of architecture, public municipal space, and the organisation of culture and the applied arts, including advertising. In this study I underline links to previous working methods, historical situations and specific personalities, whose legacy resonates in contemporary manifestations of film\/architectonic convergence. As well as following the relocation of certain automatisms of individual media practices, this study anchors itself locally by examining possible intergenerational relationships, of which the legacy of Zden\u011bk Pe\u0161\u00e1nek is especially important. The bridging of different period methods and themes (across the entire gamut of cultural informational references) might these days seem new. However, rather than a new form of art we can speak of the lumino kinetic interventions more as an unstable visual practice within the framework of which the requirements of the applied and free arts were asserted. Location became demonstrably crucial for their analysis. Location is itself part of a certain cultural practice, whose technical and aesthetic customs and conventions the organisers of these events had to come to terms with, and the relocated moving image helped them, inter alia, as a generally intelligible communication system.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0luminokinetism \u2013 Zden\u011bk Pe\u0161\u00e1nek \u2013 film \u2013 art \u2013 videoart \u2013 architecture \u2013 advertisement
\nThe author is a curator at Czech National Film Archive.
\n<\/em>sylva.polakova@nfa.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Experimental Film: Entering the Film Laboratory and Meeting the Body
\n<\/strong>Alexandra Moralesov\u00e1<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>Over the two past decades experimental filmmaking found its base more than ever in the photo-chemical laboratory. The filmmaker as producer enters different roles and gets his hands into the whole process of filmmaking. The artistic gesture is expanded from the area of conceptualization, filming and editing to the very hand-crafted approach towards the material of the celluloid and thus allows it to open the blackbox sometimes labelled Kodak. It seems that the transformation of the film industry and its infrastructure over the last twenty years represents a paradigmatic turn and the most important moment for film as art. The film laboratory as an indispensable part of the making of the photochemical film is being recognized as a creative tool in experimental and art films. Artist-run film labs allow for the development of creation in the medium of film and create a platform for the convergence of traditional knowledge and skills with contemporary experience of digital awareness. Regarding those new working conditions in experimental filmmaking we face the transformation of the relationship between the artist and the medium of the film which acquires a new bodyness as a \u201cbody of the film\u201d.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>:\u00a0experimental film \u2013 photo-chemical film \u2013 bodyness \u2013 cinephilia \u2013 creative collective \u2013 technology \u2013 machine \u2013 participation \u2013 sharing
\nThe author is an independent curator, theoretician, she is part of the film lab Labodoble.
\n<\/em>The essay was supported by PhD. project ARTIST-RUN FILM LABS: Experimenting in classical film medium in the age of post-industrial cinematography.
\n<\/em>am.alex@seznam.cz<\/a> \/\/ http:\/\/labodoble.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The History of Software Art: Several Beginnings, Several Histories
\n<\/strong>Adam Franc<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This paper introduces an artistic movement known as software art that was born almost twenty years ago. The art movement doesn\u2019t just use software as a mere tool for creating art but also works with software itself as an artistic material and fully-fledged means of expression. This paper describes the complex history of the art movement and its various historical roots. Although at first glance, it may seem that software art is a completely new art praxis, we can find several historical predecessors of software art in the world of art. The first art movement that deeply influenced software art was conceptual art. Conceptual art shares several fundamental characteristics with software art such as the shift from the physical object to an abstract idea or the creation of instructions for the realization of artworks. Software art is also inspired by destructive tendencies in art (for example Dadaism, destructive performances, Body Art) because the destruction is one of its most important strategies, realized through the performance of computer viruses. However, the historical roots of software art don\u2019t come exclusively from widely recognized art movements but can also be identified in some artworks of early digital art. In the last section of the paper, we describe a revisionist approach to the writing of software art history. In this case, software art is not put into art history as a continuation of the coherent story of art but takes on the role of active participant in the creation of our present. Software art is seen as a new opportunity for the critical reflection of contemporary art and society which are deeply influenced by ubiquitous software.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0software art \u2013 conceptual art \u2013 digital art \u2013 software \u2013 computer virus \u2013 destruction \u2013 instructions
\nAuthor is a PhD. candidate at Dept. of Art Education at Pedagogical Faculty Masaryk University in Brno.
\n<\/em>416271@mail.muni.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2017 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 23<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>The 23rd issue of the Notebook<\/em> looks at environmentalism, BioArt, restoration, and computer games. Ond\u0159ej Navr\u00e1til examines the way environmental issues were reflected in 1990s Czech art. A striking feature of the particular projects he discusses is that they were either never implemented or had to make compromises during the process of realisation. Navr\u00e1til explains the failure of these (predominantly imported) environmental interventions by pointing to the general hostility of the Czech art scene at the time to activist art. In her text BioArt and SciArt: the Interweaving of Things, Bodies and Technology<\/em>, Eva \u0160lesingerov\u00e1 offers a scholarly insight into theoretical discussions prompted by artistic experiments on the boundary of the animate and inanimate, the human and inhuman. She is critical of this tendency, which she perceives as being similar in form to biopower, which reduces mankind and other organisms to their biological component, thus rendering them subject to strict scientific and technological control. Mat\u011bj Strnad reviews two recently published books on conservation and restoration. He offers a broad overview of the theoretical questions arising and indicates what stage the debate has reached in the CR. In his review of the essay The Art of Computer Games<\/em> by Helena Bendov\u00e1, Adam Franc examines the way this theme is handled in the CR and analyses the arguments used by Bendov\u00e1 to uphold the artistic status of computer games.<\/p>\n

Specialized studies<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Art in the Age of Environmentalism. The Czech Nineties
\n<\/strong>Ond\u0159ej Navr\u00e1til<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This text examines environmental issues present in the work of Czech artists during the last decade of the 20th century. Particular attention is paid to four art projects that share a sense of engagement, ambition and complexity of implementation. Although none of the projects was completed, they are the most significant examples of their kind during the period in question. The collaboration of Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison, and the project pursued by Thomas B\u00fcsch and Jaroslav Kabilka, are imports and represent the intervention of foreign environmental oriented activism on the local art scene. Conversely, works by Luk\u00e1\u0161 Gavlovsk\u00fd and Federico D\u00edaz can be seen as representing the emergent engagement of local artists in green issues. Gavlovsk\u00fd\u2019s project is moving in the direction of a more practical activism. D\u00edaz\u2019s project is unusual in that it intertwines techno-optimism with holistic and spiritual visions. Taken as a whole, these examples offer a compact image of green trends in Czech art during the nineties. They also indicate that the way that environmental issues are represented replicates more general trends in Czech art, i.e. a distrust of engaged art that is gradually disappearing, as well as certain romantic and transcendental elements.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0art \u2013 environmental issues \u2013 commitment \u2013 nineties \u2013 Newton & Helen Mayer Harrison \u2013\u00a0Thomas B\u00fcsch \u2013 Luk\u00e1\u0161 Gavlovsk\u00fd \u2013 Federico D\u00edaz \u2013 Ji\u0159\u00ed Zem\u00e1nek
\nThe author teaches at the Dept. of Art Education at Pedagogical Faculty of the Masaryk University in Brno.
\n<\/em>ondran7@seznam.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BioArt and SciArt: Entanglements of Things, Bodies and Technologies
\n<\/strong>Eva \u0160lesingerov\u00e1<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>We are witnessing profound changes in our societies, changes mediated by and manifesting themselves through the emergence of various biotechnological, digital, and techno-scapes. This paper examines BioArt or biotechnological art, a term used to describe the work of artists who are often also scientists, geneticists, and biologists, and who are intrigued by working with living or semi-living tissues using cutting-edge biotechnologies. Many artists and performers use living cells, tissues, and genes to create, perform, and reprogram living things, and work with the specific imagination of the body and embodiment. BioArtists and BioArt laboratories question and challenge existing approaches to concepts of the human body, embodiment, and the asymmetries between subject and object, life and non-life, human and non-human. Drawing on works by Fran\u00e7ois-Joseph Lapointe and Rachel Mayeri, the text analyses current forms and manifestations of power over life, or biopower, and the specific techno-rationality which imagines, classifies, and governs our societies today.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>:\u00a0BioArt \u2013 Sci Art \u2013 neo-materialism \u2013 entanglement \u2013 body and embodiment
\nThe author is a Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie Fellow at the Institute of Sociology of the Goethe\u00a0<\/em>University in Frankfurt am Main and teaches at the Institute of Sociology \/ Dept. of Social Anthropology at Faculty of Social Studies of the Masaryk University in Brno. The text was supported from Project \u201cEU Horizon 2020 Marie Curie Grant Nr. 750088 (Artificial Life \/ Anthropological and Sociological Analysis of Life Engineering).
\n<\/em>slesingerova@soz.uni-frankfurt.de<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe Believe We Are So Good that We Are Above Debate\u201d
\n<\/strong>Mat\u011bj Strnad<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This is an extended review of two books that have extended the still limited range of contemporary literature on art conservation on offer in the Czech Republic. The first book is a new translation of Contemporary Theory of Conservation<\/em> by Salvador Mu\u00f1oz Vi\u00f1as (London, 2005; Czech translation: Pardubice, 2015). The review outlines the framework proposed by Mu\u00f1oz Vi\u00f1as within which contemporary theories of conservation operate and rehearses some of the specific arguments being conducted. It then examines the relation of these debates to contemporary art forms. The review ends by placing the new book within the Czech context and discussing its editorial and linguistic shortcomings. The second review is of the doctoral dissertation now published in book form by Zuzana Bauerov\u00e1 entitled Proti \u010dasu, Konzervovanie-re\u0161taurovanie v \u010ceskoslovensku 1918\u20131971<\/em> (Praha, 2015), which recounts a compelling and at times critical story of the so-called \u201cschool of Czech\/Czechoslovak restoration\u201d and its meta-narratives. Bauerov\u00e1\u2019s book is a dense historical study that elegantly exposes many of the roots of current controversies in the sphere of art conservation and restoration in the Czech Republic, e.g. how the idea of \u201crestorer as artist\u201d came to be so prevalent and dominant. This idea, while perhaps no longer so rigid, could be a major obstacle to the adoption of more contemporary theories (and practices) of art conservation, such as those discussed by Mu\u00f1oz Vi\u00f1as.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0Conservation \u2013 restoration \u2013 conservation theory \u2013 Czech restoration school
\nThe author is a Collection development manager at the Czech National Film Archive.
\n<\/em>matej.strnad@nfa.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2017 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 22<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>The latest issue of the Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones links objects of interest with the methodologies of art history and film criticism. Over recent years both of these disciplines have drawn valuable inspiration from visual studies, media archaeology and other interdisciplinary approaches, and this is reflected in the individual contributions. In Beyond the Epistemology of Montage<\/em>, Fran\u00e7ois Albera examines montage not as a specific film technique but as a broader, disparately structured period discourse. Mat\u011bj Strnad looks at the different versions of the film An\u00e9mic Cin\u00e9ma<\/em> by Marcel Duchamp, concluding by posing questions of the character of the film work and the creation of a film canon. In his text, Tom\u00e1\u0161 Pospiszyl examines the early collages of Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159, asking to what extent they were mediated by filmic procedures. The essay by V\u00e1clav Kr\u016f\u010dek looks at the concept of the movement of time or lack thereof in Antonioni\u2019s Blow-Up<\/em>. Kate\u0159ina Svato\u0148ov\u00e1 surveys the work of the contemporary Czech artists Zbyn\u011bk Baladr\u00e1n, Barbora Kleinhamplov\u00e1, Tom\u00e1\u0161 Svoboda and Ad\u00e9la Babanov\u00e1 through the prism of German philosophy and media theory. This issue of the Notebook ends with reviews of Artificial Darkness: An Obscure History of Modern Art and Media<\/em> by Noam M. Elcott and the anthology Medienwissenschaft<\/em> compiled by Kate\u0159ina Krtilov\u00e1 and Kate\u0159ina Svato\u0148ov\u00e1<\/p>\n

Specialized studies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

For an Epistemography of Montage: Preliminaries
\n<\/strong>Francois Albera<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This is a Czech translation of an essay by Swiss cinema-historian Francois Albera. Through a reassessment of the topic of editing, based on its fields of application described in the episteme of the late twentieth century \u2013 invoking the diverse phenomena associated with the successive and animated image \u2013, this article proposes surmounting the constraints of a field such as cin\u00e9matographe, which has \u201cspecificity\u201d at its disposal, or otherwise works deliberately or surreptitiously to create it. It recommends differentiating between the techno-aesthetic discourse on editing and the \u201cprescriptive\u201d discourse of the critic or the film theorist, in order to construct an epistemographic category that consistently classifies the fields used in applying the concepts, as well as the usage rules related to editing, their transformations and their variations. The aim is to align them with the conditions of their possibility. This initial analysis is appended to certain ideas from the operative dimension of montage: \u201cmachinability\u201d, discontinuity, and superimposition.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0montage \u2013 editing \u2013 history of cinema \u2013 technology of editing \u2013 Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s \u2013 Gustave\u00a0Le Gray
\nThe author is a historian of the cinematography, teaches at the Lausanne University.
\n<\/em>The text was originally published in: Cin\u00e9mas, vol. 13 \/ 2002, Nr. 1\u20132, p. 11\u201332.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An\u00e9mic Cin\u00e9ma: Assorted Histories
\n<\/strong>Mat\u011bj Strnad<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>In 1967, Marcel Duchamp declared An\u00e9mic Cin\u00e9ma (1926) to be the only film he had ever made. Yet the accounts of his endeavours during the 1920s, as attested both by his diaries and by his contemporaries, and also rare fragmentary artefacts, point to a much broader field of Duchamp\u2019s filmic work. By focusing on the reception and distribution history of An\u00e9mic Cin\u00e9ma<\/em>, the article offers an explanation for Duchamp\u2019s later dismissal of any other cinematic activities beyond this film. In a chronological account the article traces the lineage of reading An\u00e9mic Cin\u00e9ma<\/em> and also looks at its unauthorized version to investigate the mechanisms of its reception, canon-formation, and, in the bigger picture, writing about film and other communications media. The unauthorized version serves as a tool to distinguish and understand first-hand and secondary accounts in the context of An\u00e9mic Cin\u00e9ma\u2019s<\/em> circulation. Lastly, based on the above, the author illustrates the need for a more material reading of the film and for simultaneous acknowledgement of its temporal and performative qualities, which appear whenever the film as an object comes into full being. This combination should then help us not only to understand other accounts and statements, but also to form our own.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0film \u2013 version \u2013 distribution \u2013 reception \u2013 Marcel Duchamp
\nThe author is Collection development manager at The Czech National Film Archive.
\n<\/em>matej.strnad@nfa.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cinematographic Montage and the Montage Principle outside Cinema: Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159\u2019s Early Collages as a Case Study
\n<\/strong>Tom\u00e1\u0161 Pospiszyl<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>The paper considers the relationship between, on the one hand, non-cinematic works of art whose structure appears to apply principles of film montage and, on the other, cinematographic works. Examples of this are the collages of Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159 from the late 1940s and early 1950s, in which he created pictorial sequences using cuttings from illustrated magazines. Montage is not, however, a technique pursued only in the film industry; it is also associated with methods of cultural production as such, for example, by Walter Benjamin or Aby Warburg even in their forms of theoretical reflection. Outside cinema, however, the term \u201cmontage\u201d generally suggests a mere comparison or a loose reference. In attempting to describe and interpret Kol\u00e1\u0159\u2019s early work, a direct connection with film cannot be proved. Rather than by cinematic methods and theories, Kol\u00e1\u0159 was influenced by popular culture, in particular the layouts of illustrated magazines, and then, only secondarily, by the methods of film composition that had penetrated those magazines.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>:\u00a0montage \u2013 Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159 \u2013 collage \u2013 cinematography \u2013 Arnold Hauser \u2013 graphic design \u2013 interdisciplinary methodology \u2013 remediation \u2013 post-medium condition
\nThe author teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
\n<\/em>tomas.pospiszyl@avu.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maryon
\n<\/strong>V\u00e1clav Kr\u016f\u010dek<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>Maryon Park in London is the site of key scenes in Antonioni\u2019s cult movie Blow-Up<\/em> (1966). Static shots taken in the park by the photographer character Thomas, which are wedged into the narrative, present a process indicating a turn to an inner structure of \u201cimmobility\u201d in the moving images. This essay focuses on the analysis of the \u201cimmobile takes\u201d phenomena associated with the initiation of specific \u201ctime-image\u201d in the historical context of modernist film. Throughout this essay, the author investigates the nature of two continuous structures \u2013 the external structure of the film narrative, existing as a necessary milieu to be \u201cbroken into\u201d by immobile takes and, secondly, the internal structure of graininess in the immobile takes. In Antonioni\u2019s film this particular structure is subjected to subtle modulation revealed by the method of re-photography. The author considers the expressive and semantic effects of \u201cmoving immobility\u201d in film (given by re-presentation) as secondary, \u201cmasking\u201d the profound presentation of the structural and differential state of graininess within its repetition. The essay is intended to provide support for the author\u2019s claim that the momentary transcendental thoughts triggered by the \u201csuspended time\u201d of the immobile take may have its source in the immediate repetition of \u201cthe Same\u201d within the immanent structure of the film image.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>:\u00a0film \u2013 time \u2013 movement \u2013 immobility \u2013 grain \u2013 modulation \u2013 differentiation \u2013 immanence
\nThe author is a PhD candidate at the Film Studies Dept. at Faculty of Philosophy and Arts of the Charles University in Prague.
\n<\/em>vaclavkrucek@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Dislocating Vision and a Life in Pictures: Reflections on the Media Condition of Moving Images in the Light of Medienwissenschaft
\n<\/strong>Kate\u0159ina Svato\u0148ov\u00e1<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This article explores the state of the media today and the expanded field of visual culture, in particular, the relationship between cinema and art, especially through the prism of German media philosophy and theory. It focuses on instances of possible dislocation and translocation, which enable a film to \u201cthink\u201d differently and enable different ways of thinking about film. The article investigates the media condition where intermediality is the norm and medium specificity is derivative. Furthermore, the article examines instances of conceptual transposition, and seeks to demonstrate that the transfer along the art\u2013cinema axis offers a different view of cinema\u2019s basic media techniques and uncovers its reflexivity and performativity. Examining specific works of four artists and their media practices, the article focuses on the various ways of seeing through film (in the works of Zbyn\u011bk Baladr\u00e1n and Barbora Kleinhamplov\u00e1), film consciousness and thinking through film (Tom\u00e1\u0161 Svoboda), and film\u2019s labour of memory (Ad\u00e9la Babanov\u00e1).<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0media theory and philosophy \u2013 media archeology \u2013 intermediality \u2013 visual art and film \u2013 Ad\u00e9la Babanov\u00e1 \u2013 Zbyn\u011bk Baladr\u00e1n \u2013 Barbora Kleinhamplov\u00e1 \u2013 Tom\u00e1\u0161 Svoboda<\/p>\n

The author is a Head of the Film Studies Dept. at Faculty of Philosophy and Arts of the Charles University in Prague.
\n<\/em>katerina.svatonova@ff.cuni.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

2016 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 21<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>The twenty-first edition of the Notebook For Art, Theory and Related Zones<\/em> is devoted to \u201cSpeculation and Art\u201d. It examines the aesthetic and critical implications of what is known as the speculative turn in continental philosophy, represented by currents such as speculative realism, new materialism, objectively oriented ontology and accelerationism. The essays forming the backbone of this edition are the first specialist publications in Czech. They are not limited to documenting the basic trends, but develop these ideas in original ways.
\nIn his introductory essay, V\u00e1clav Jano\u0161\u010d\u00edk uses the metaphor of the map and the territory from the novel of that name by Michel Houellebecq to examine the philosophy of Quentin Meillassoux and his demand that we leave our comfort zone for the \u201cgreat outdoors\u201d that lies beyond the boundaries of thinking and object. Tom\u00e1\u0161 H\u0159\u00edbek offers a critique of speculative realism and new materialism from the position of the analytical philosophical tradition and looks in detail at the ontology of Graham Harman and its implications for aesthetics. The contribution by Martin Kaplick\u00fd compares Harman\u2019s thinking with that of Alfred North Whitehead and examines in detail the status of aesthetics in the philosophical systems of both thinkers. Luk\u00e1\u0161 Likav\u010dan draws on the term \u201cxenorationality\u201d to enrich our understanding of the place of aesthetics within the ideological framework of speculative realism. He looks at the problematic of stepping beyond the boundary of anthropocentrism, which on the one hand is creating an ecological crisis and on the other the development of artificial intelligence.
\nThese four original essays are joined by the translation of a text by Suhail Malik that promotes the liberation of artistic creativity from the correlationism anchored in aesthetic experience, a demand that leads inexorably to the need to destroy contemporary art. This thematic block includes a review by Tereza Stejskalov\u00e1 of the anthology Object<\/em>, published by V\u00e1clav Jano\u0161\u010d\u00edk last year on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name at the Kvalit\u00e1\u0159 Gallery. In a second review Milena Bartlov\u00e1 examines the question of the pathos of the link between research activities with the existential situation of the researcher in the book by Josef Vojvod\u00edk and Marie Langerov\u00e1 Pathos in Czech Art, Poetry and Aesthetics in the 1940s<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Specialized studies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Territory and the Map: Speculative Thinking and the Problem of the \u2018Great Outdoors\u2019
\n<\/strong>V\u00e1clav Jano\u0161\u010d\u00edk<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>Speculative realism remains a highly discussed and indeed contested tendency in contemporary thought. Rather than a direct confrontation between its various strands and the post-Kantian or correlationist philosophy, the present article intends to provide a more nuanced and open reading of some of its elements in order to foster dialogue rather than extrapolation. I draw on the work of Quentin Meillassoux, namely on his inaugural essay After Finitude<\/em> as well as on an extension of his attack on correlationism on to subjectalism, confirming his more explicit engagement with poststructuralism. In such course I aim to show not only some critical or controversial aspects of his theory, but also its point of conjunction with the critical tradition in philosophy. The whole text is intertwined with an exposition of Michel Houellebecq\u2019s The Map and the Territory<\/em> to illustrate the potential of literary fiction to contribute to philosophy, namely in respect to its ambition to reach out to the \u201cGreat Outdoors\u201d of a world independent from our anthropocentric imports.<\/p>\n

Keywords<\/strong>:\u00a0speculative realism \u2013 poststructuralism \u2013 Quentin Meillassoux \u2013 Michel Houellebecq \u2013 correlationism \u2013 grand dehors
\nThe author teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
\n<\/em>vaclav.janoscik@avu.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Realism, Materialism, Art
\n<\/strong>Tom\u00e1\u0161 H\u0159\u00edbek<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>Recent years have seen the ascendance of a new trend in continental philosophy called \u201cthe speculative turn\u201d, \u201cspeculative realism\u201d, \u201ccontinental materialism\u201d, or \u201cobject-oriented ontology\u201d (OOO). I focus on the work of one of the proponents of this new trend, Graham Harman, in particular his recent attempt to extend his \u201cobject-oriented\u201d approach to art and aesthetics. In part 1, I start with a brief characterization of the new trend in terms of the shared opposition of all its proponents to what Quentin Meillassoux calls \u201ccorrelationism\u201d, which is, roughly, anti-realism. However, there is a split among the new realists as to whether they accept materialism. As I explain in an exposition of OOO in part 2, Harman does not accept it, but he has an inadequate view of materialism. This affects his defense of the Greenbergian formalism as an alternative to materialism, which I outline in part 3. I believe Harman\u2019s favorite formalism is quite unfit for understanding the art of the period that interests him, that is, post-1960s art. I close with a few notes on an alternative, namely a certain branch of materialism which, however, has as its source psychoanalysis rather than the metaphysical doctrine which usually goes by this name.<\/p>\n

Keywords:\u00a0<\/strong>Graham Harman \u2013 Clement Greenberg \u2013 realism \u2013 materialism \u2013 OOO \u2013 formalism
\nThe author is a researcher at Institute of Philosophy of The Czech Academy of Science and teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
\n<\/em>tomas_hribek@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Graham Harman and Alfred North Whitehead: On Philosophy, Aesthetics and Art
\n<\/strong>Martin Kaplick\u00fd<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>The main aim of the article is to compare Alfred North Whitehead\u2019s speculative philosophy and Graham Harman\u2019s object-oriented ontology, and to consider Harman\u2019s claim that Whitehead can be described as an object-oriented philosopher. The text is divided into two parts. The first part introduces Whitehead\u2019s philosophical method of imaginative generalization, and shows how this method leads Whitehead to extend the meaning of the traditional philosophical terms behind their established use. In this method, metaphor is seen as an indispensable tool of philosophy. This extension of the terms and Whitehead\u2019s explanatory scheme is highly appreciated by Harman. Harman sees this extension as one of the rare examples of overcoming the so-called correlationism and relates it to his own model of objectoriented ontology. It is demonstrated that however similar these two philosophical schemes may seem, they differ radically in their main aim. While Whitehead looks for a scheme which could successfully interlink final and efficient causality, Harman is trying to develop a theory of objects based on a new version of formal causality. The second part of the article is devoted to the role of aesthetics and art theory in the schemes of both philosophers. In both cases, aesthetics is located at the base of the whole philosophical system. In Harman\u2019s case, the key aesthetic notion is allure, which is described as a way to overcome the crust of sensual objects and meet the hidden nonrelational real object, while Whitehead supports the notion of beauty conceived as the process of harmonization of diverse data. The key problems of Harman\u2019s aesthetic theory are suggested, along with the possible aid of Whitehead\u2019s solutio.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0Graham Harman \u2013 Alfred North Whitehead \u2013 speculative realism \u2013 aesthetics \u2013 art
\nThis text was supported by project \u201eProces a estetika: Explicitn\u00ed a implikovan\u00e1 estetika v\u00a0procesu\u00e1ln\u00ed filosofii Alfreda North Whiteheada\u201c (GA\u010cR 16-13208S) at Philosophical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague and Philosophical Faculty of the South Bohemian University in \u010cesk\u00e9 Bud\u011bjovice.
\n<\/em>martin.kaplicky@ff.cuni.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aesthetics, Ecology and Google AI: A Preliminary Inquiry into Xenorationality<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Luk\u00e1\u0161 Likav\u010dan<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This paper presents a blueprint for a new aesthetic theory which is informed by recent developments in the philosophy of speculative realism on the one hand, and capable of addressing issues arising from the ecological crisis and the emergence of artificial intelligence on the other. The primary point of departure here is the philosophy of Quentin Meillassoux and Immanuel Kant. Aesthetics is understood as a speculative investigation of the realm of possible assemblages (or compositions) of entities. Such assemblages manifest xenorationality \u2013 that is, non-human principles of association and composition. Drawing on the work of Alfred North Whitehead and Steven Shaviro, I define rationality as the investment of external objects into the human mind, rather than an autonomous subjective faculty. General genetics of xenorationality uncovers the original exteriority and ancestrality of rational principles vis-\u00e0-vis the human subject. Furthermore, xenorational aesthetics is demonstrated on the example of Google AI AlphaGo program\u2019s surprising move in the 2nd match against the world\u2019s top Go player, Lee Sedol. This move was described by viewers as \u201cinhuman\u201d yet \u201cbeautiful\u201d, and it will be argued that it was a manifestation of AlphaGo\u2019s xenorationality. Lastly, the argument can be generalised to planetary ecosystem processes, leading to an assessment of the aesthetic experience of xenorationality in the process of cognitive mapping as the major driver of socio-political practices in the Anthropocene.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0aesthetics \u2013 rationality \u2013 speculative realism \u2013 Quentin Meillassoux \u2013 Anthropocene \u2013 artificial intelligence
\nThe author is a PhD candidate at the Department of Environmental Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Masaryk University, Brno. This paper was written in collaboration with the Department of Environmental Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Masaryk University. Work on this paper has been supported by the project MUNI\/A\/1004\/2015 \u201cContemporary Approaches to the Study of Environmental Phenomena II \u2013 Specific Research at Masaryk University\u201d.
\n<\/em>likavcan.lukas@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reason to Destroy Contemporary Art
\n<\/strong>Suhail Malik<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This is a Czech translation of an essay by the London-based critic and theorist Suhail Malik. The essay draws on the rationalist strand of speculative realism to claim that contemporary art \u2013 so long as it remains dependent on the subject of aesthetic experience \u2013 remains a branch of correlationism as defined by Quentin Meillassoux. The meaning and value of contemporary art springs from the mutual constitution of the art object and the perceiving subject in the event of aesthetic experience. This process presupposes and further reproduces the principles of correlationism. Any thorough-going realism that opposes correlationism must undermine the very foundations of contemporary art and by so doing hint at the possibility of another art practice. Such an art would not be co-constituted by its audience; instead, it would be a rational practice outside of the realm of aesthetics.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong>\u00a0contemporary art \u2013 speculative realism \u2013 correlationism \u2013 rationalism
\nThe author is a critic and theoretian, teaches at the Goldsmiths, University of London. This essay was originally published as \u201cReason to Destroy Contemporary Art\u201d, in: Christoph COX \u2013 Jenny JASKEY \u2013 Suhail MALIK (eds.), Realism Materialism Art, New York: Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College 2015, pp. 185\u2013191.
\n<\/em>s.malik@gold.ac.uk<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

2016 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 20<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>At the heart of this issue are three studies following on from the international conference \u201cArt Criticism 2.0\u201d, which took place last November as one of the events surrounding the V\u011bra Jirousov\u00e1 Award. Elisa Rusca warns of the pitfalls linked with using social media for art criticism purposes, pointing out that specialist analyses can be replaced simply by the quantitative measurement of popularity. Eve Kalyva interprets the interplay of social media and contemporary art as part of the broader process of the commodification of culture under neoliberalism. Sebastian M\u00fchl examines the question of the critical evaluation of the outputs of \u201cartistic research\u201d from the perspective of their cognitive and aesthetic status. Theses texts are available in Czech in the printed edition and in the original English in the online magazine. This edition also contains a translation of a text by Luis Camnitzer, in which this renowned representative of conceptual art offers an interpretation of the transformation of the concept of an arts education during the course of the twentieth century, and formulates a manifesto for the emancipation of the process of teaching art from the shackles of the academic world. The edition closes with a review by Slavom\u00edra Feren\u010duhov\u00e1 of the essay by Hubert Guz\u00edk on the phenomenon of the koldom<\/em>, or collective house, in Czechoslovakian architecture of the mid-twentieth century.<\/p>\n

Specialized studies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tumbling Down the Rabbit Hole: Art Criticism on Social Networks and Internet Freedom
\n<\/a><\/strong>Elisa Rusca<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong>Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>Since 2012, the New York-based curator and critic Brian Droitcour has been using his account on the online platform Yelp to write exhibition and art reviews. In reaction, Orit Gat analysed some questions about Yelp and its potential use as an art-criticism tool. By taking Droitcour as an example, Gat seemed to be encouraging the reader to view the Internet as a place where one could find new ways to write about art, opening up to a larger number of writers and a more diverse audience and range of styles. This article argues to the contrary: the online and social-media experience has been personalized to such an extent that exposure to diverse views and writing has become increasingly difficult.<\/p>\n

The English version of the essay is made available on Se\u0161it\u2019s website at https:\/\/vvp.avu.cz\/sesit\/.<\/p>\n

Keywords <\/strong>art criticism \u2013 social networks \u2013 social media \u2013 contemporary art \u2013 internet
\nAuthor <\/strong>Germany (Berlin), <\/em>curator
\nelisa.rusca@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

“Where Are My Keys? The Now of Critique in a Plurality of Voices\u201d
\n<\/a><\/strong>Eve Kalyva
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>Social media are intrinsic to marketing. They contribute to the intensification of consumerist culture, and, together with prevalent neo-liberal policies across the educational and the cultural sectors, shift the dynamics of our access to knowledge and culture. This causes changes in museum policies and the traditional model of plan\u2013produce\u2013publish and affects the institutional position and validity of criticism. The essay tries to identify these changes and reflect on the state of criticism today. It examines different artworks that use social media, and suggests an interdisciplinary approach that, based on social semiotics, turns attention to the act of communication. By understanding art criticism as interpretation in operation, we can negotiate its position within overlapping discursive frameworks and evaluate the social and
\ncritical dimensions of art. The English version of the essay is made available on Se\u0161it\u2019s website at https:\/\/vvp.avu.cz\/sesit\/.<\/p>\n

Keywords <\/strong>art criticism \u2013 social networks \u2013 contemporary art \u2013 gallery \u2013 museum
\nAuthor United Kingdom (London), <\/em>curator, <\/em>e.m.kalyva@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Artistic Research as a Challenge for Art Criticism<\/strong>
\nSebastian M\u00fchl
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>In the last decade, artistic research arose as a new avant-garde practice in the arts. Regarding the dissolution of artistic limits, research-oriented practices increasingly challenged the once inflexible boundaries between art and science. Not only did artistic research challenge well-established notions of scientific knowledge production, but it also confronted art criticism with a number of problems. Considering contemporary theories of aesthetic experience, one can reasonably criticize the claims of artistic research as being contradictory to one another. While they tend to lean on the production of knowledge through artistic forms, the inherent \u201caestheticity\u201d of the materialized objects of this production leads to the undermining of all conceptualization.
\nThe English version of the essay is made available on Se\u0161it\u2019s website at https:\/\/vvp.avu.cz\/sesit\/.<\/p>\n

Keywords <\/strong>Artistic Research \u2013 Art Criticism \u2013 Art Critical Judgement \u2013 Aesthetic Experience \u2013 Conceptual Art<\/p>\n

Author <\/strong>Germany (Offenbach am Main), Ph.D. student and research assistent at Offenbach University of Art and Design, where his thesis is supervised by the philosopher Prof. Dr. Juliane Rebentisch.
\n<\/em>muehl@hfg-offenbach.de<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/h3>\n

2015 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 19<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The texts in this issue of the Notebook all in some way reflect on the paradigmatic shift between high modernism, associated with a formalistic theory of art and a concept of the specificity of media, and the post-war neo-avantgarde, which sought to part company with the aesthetic autonomy of art as understood in this way (conceptualism and action art). This shift took a somewhat different form on the western and eastern sides of the Iron Curtain, and this in turn calls out for a comparative approach when examining the period in question. The texts contained in this issue are organised with regard for the chronological development of the issue under discussion. Tom\u00e1\u0161 H\u0159\u00edbek confronts the modernist theories of the artwork propounded by Greenberg and Muka\u0159ovsk\u00fd, and interrogates the limits and particularities of formalism. Taking her lead from the article by Diarmuid Costello (Notebook<\/em>, 2009, no. 6\u20137, 44\u201366), Michaela Brejcha criticises the formalist theory of art for the way it fails to take on board the legacy of Kantian aesthetics, and offers a means of subsuming conceptual art within an aesthetic conception of art. The interview by Pavl\u00edna Morganov\u00e1 with Robert Wittmann introduces the activities and opinions of the one of the unjustly overlooked figures of the Aktual movement. In her comparative review Milena Bartlov\u00e1 examines the latest books by Karel C\u00edsa\u0159 and Tom\u00e1\u0161 Pospiszyl.<\/p>\n

Specialized studies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0A Czech Greenberg? Muka\u0159ovsk\u00fd and Czech Formalism
\n<\/strong>Tom\u00e1\u0161 H\u0159\u00edbek<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong>Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This article revisits Tom\u00e1\u0161 Pospiszyl\u2019s discussion of the split between the US and the Czechoslovak postwar modernisms as a difference between the views of two critics who dominated the American and the Czechoslovak art scenes, Clement Greenberg and Jind\u0159ich Chalupeck\u00fd. Pospiszyl convincingly traces the evolution of American art to what has been called Greenberg\u2019s \u201cformalism\u201d, and the developments on the Czechoslovak scene to Chalupeck\u00fd\u2019s ideas about art as part of social social interactions. Though the author of the article agrees with this analysis of Czechoslovak modernism as anti-formalist, he seeks to draw attention to the writings of the Czech literary theorist Jan Muka\u0159ovsk\u00fd, which were contemporaneous with Chalupeck\u00fd\u2019s and Greenberg\u2019s \u2013 in particular Muka\u0159ovsk\u00fd\u2019s 1944 lecture \u201cThe Essence of the Visual Arts\u201d. The author provides a comparative analysis of Muka\u0159ovsk\u00fd and Greenberg, suggesting that the former was quite close to the latter\u2019s \u201cformalism\u201d. This might seem incorrect, given that Muka\u0159ovsk\u00fd is considered to be a precursor of the semiotic theory of art, which is generally understood as antithetical to formalism. The solution, he argues, is to realize that Greenberg is subtler, hence not so \u201cformalist\u201d after all. At any rate, it turns out that in addition to Chalupeck\u00fd\u2019s \u201csocial\u201d theory of art, Muka\u0159ovsk\u00fd had a more \u201cformalist\u201d alternative which \u2013 for well-known historical reasons \u2013 had no effect on the subsequent\u00a0development of Czechoslovak modernism.<\/p>\n

Keywords <\/strong>Greenberg \u2013 Chalupeck\u00fd \u2013 Muka\u0159ovsk\u00fd \u2013 essentialism \u2013 formalism \u2013 autonomy of art
\nAuthor\u00a0<\/strong>Czech Republic, The Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and Institut of Philosophy at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, <\/em>tomas_hribek@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

On the Concept of Medium Specificityand the Kantian Interpretation of Conceptual Art
\n<\/strong>Michaela Brejcha<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong>Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This essay discusses the Kantian interpretation of conceptual art, which emerged recently in debates about the status of conceptual art and other styles of neo-avantgarde art in aesthetics and art theory in the second half of the twentieth century. Its primary focus is the thesis Diarmuid Costello presented in his essay \u201cGreenberg\u2019s Kant and the Fate of Aesthetics in Contemporary Art Th eory\u201d. Costello sees the problem of the uncertain aesthetic status of conceptual art and the related divorce between art practice and aesthetic theory as a result of a misinterpretation of Kant made by the infl uential art critic Clement Greenberg and his concept\u00a0of medium specifi city. Th e aim of this essay is to show that although Costello is right to see the theory of medium specifi city as the main diffi culty aesthetic theory has in accepting conceptual art, he is wrong to make Greenberg responsible for this difficulty. Th e essay seeks to demonstrate that the problem lies instead in the essentialist point of view, beyond the Greenbergian and formalist approaches to art.<\/p>\n

Keywords <\/strong>conceptual art \u2013 medium specifi city \u2013 Diarmuid Costello \u2013 Immanuel Kant \u2013 Clement\u00a0Greenberg \u2013 formalism \u2013 aesthetic norm
\nAuthor\u00a0<\/strong>Czech Republic, Department of Aesthetics at Faculty of Philosophy and Arts Charles University in Prague, <\/em>michaela.brejcha@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2015 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 18<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>This issue of the\u00a0Notebook<\/em>\u00a0for Art, Theory and Related Zones<\/em>\u00a0contains two studies from the sphere of experimental poetry, and a third that examines the convergence of contemporary visual arts and professional dance. As always, the\u00a0Notebook<\/em>\u00a0ends with a review of an important specialist publication. Jan Wollner looks at the parallels between the journal-style texts of Pavel Jur\u00e1\u010dek, the experimental poetry of Bohumila Gr\u00f6gerov\u00e1 and Ji\u0159\u00ed Hir\u0161al, and the literary criticism of Ji\u0159\u00ed Pechar and the discourse of psychiatry, in order to highlight the conflicting ways in which the term \u201cexperiment\u201d was used in the cultural life of Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1960s. Ond\u0159ej Buddeus also looks at the experimental poetry of this decade in a piece focusing on the Norwegian poet Jan Erik Vold. Buddeus maintains that the linguistic permutations and the deconstruction of poetic subjectivity to be found in Vold\u2019s work derive organically from the ethos of the Scandinavian literary neo-avantgarde. Viktor \u010cech associates the growing popularity of dance and choreography in the contemporary visual arts with the broader phenomenon of the \u201carchival impulse\u201d, within which modern artists return to the reconstruction and re-contextualisation of the legacy of modernism. Hubert Guzik, reviewing the anthology published last year entitled\u00a0Things and Words<\/em>, finds it to be pioneering. However, he regrets the fact that, alongside the voices of the cultural avant-garde, we do not hear those of the technical and economic avant-garde.<\/p>\n

Specialized studies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Boundaries of Experiment
\n<\/strong>Jan Wollner
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cExperiment\u201d was one of the most frequent terms in discussions on the arts, politics, and science in in 1960s Czechoslovakia. Instead of developing any strict definition of the term, the essay seeks to trace its various, often contradictory, and changing meanings. The same term was used by representatives of state institutions as well as by the so-called \u201cindependent\u201d or \u201calternative\u201d artists. It was variously declared as a source of independent creativity, a passing fashion, a scientific method, a space of freedom, or a symptom of insanity. The essay uses a couple of examples to show the ambiguous relationships among these meanings.
\nKeywords <\/strong>experiment \u2013 normalization \u2013 sixties \u2013 experimental film \u2013 experimental poetry \u2013 Pavel Jur\u00e1\u010dek \u2013 Bohumila Gr\u00f6gerov\u00e1 and Josef Hir\u0161al \u2013 V\u00e1clav Havel \u2013 Ji\u0159\u00ed Pechar
\nAuthor\u00a0<\/strong>Czech Republic, The Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, <\/em>jan.wollner@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Meaning Inhabiting Structure: Jan Erik Vold and the Limits\u00a0<\/strong>of Experiment in Norwegian Literature of the 1960s
\n<\/strong>Ond\u0159ej Buddeus<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>In the history of literature, the term \u201cexperiment\u201d is for the most part rooted in the 1960s. Its meaning and field of reference vary with respect to the context in which it is placed. The article aims to provide, and interpret, several instances of experimental techniques in Norwegian literature of the 1960s against the backdrop of Jan Erik Vold\u2019s poetry. It outlines the occurrence of the techniques as well as their forms, both in the context of the Scandinavian literary Neo-Avant-Garde together with its intellectual impulses and in the frame of a specific author\u2019s discourse. The article aims to demonstrate that the adjective \u201cexperimental\u201d in 1960s Norwegian literature did not suggest any particular genre definition; rather, it was a general method of reconstructing literary language and reconstructing literature\u2019s relation to reality.
\nIn such an environment, as the article seeks to demonstrate, experimental techniques (that is, visual, sound, and concrete poetry) thus become merely one of many textual practices, which
\nare organically integrated into non-experimental poetic techniques. When juxtaposed with Czechoslovak experimental literature, the phenomenon appears to assume a position outside the established binary opposition of \u201cnatural v. artificial\u201d poetry.<\/p>\n

Keywords <\/strong>Jan Erik Vold \u2013 post-war literature \u2013 Norwegian poetry \u2013 experimental poetry \u2013 permutation \u2013 Scandinavian Neo-Avant-Garde<\/p>\n

Author\u00a0<\/strong>Czech Republic, Department of Germanic Studies Faculty of Philosophy & Arts Charles University in Prague, <\/em>ondrejasvet@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

The Choreographic Moment: Memory and Modernity
\n<\/strong>Viktor \u010cech
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>Recent years have witnessed a growing interest of visual artists in using dance and choreography in their work. As opposed to the \u201cconceptual\u201d current in contemporary dance in the 1990s, this trend does not transform the practice of dance itself; rather, it introduces
\ndance and choreographic aspects into gallery art. The trend has attracted deserved attention in the global artworld and has been the subject of several large curatorial projects. This article is intended as an introduction to the topic in the form of case studies of several international artists. The term \u201cchoreographic moment\u201d is meant to address what the author of the article takes to be central to the phenomenon: the application of choreography as a way of controlling
\nbody movement against the background of social and cultural memory.<\/p>\n

Keywords:\u00a0<\/strong>contemporary dance \u2013 choreography \u2013 Sharon Lockhart \u2013 Kelly
\nNipper \u2013 modernism \u2013 archival impulse<\/p>\n

Author:\u00a0<\/strong>Czech Republic, curator and critic, <\/em>vikcech@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

2014 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 17<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>The 17th issue of The Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones examines two major themes: the concept of the experiment, and post-internet art. The first section comprises two original essays and an interview based on papers presented at the conference \u201cBoundaries of the Experiment\u201d at UMPRUM. The first theoretical essay by Kamil N\u00e1b\u011blek analyses the term \u201cexperiment\u201d and the different ways it is applied in science and art. The concept of experimentation in architecture and urban planning is examined by Mark\u00e9ta \u017d\u00e1\u010dkov\u00e1 in a case study devoted to the activities of the Research Institute for Building and Architecture. Ji\u0159\u00ed Pechar addresses the possibilities of experimentation in literature, especially in respect of the French nouveau roman and experimental poetry of the 1960s, in an interview with Johana Lomov\u00e1 and Jan Wollner, organisers of the conference referred to above. The topic of post-internet art is examined in two texts. V\u00e1clav Magid places the current debate around the term \u201cpost-internet\u201d within the interpretative framework of critical theory. The last text of this issue is a translation of a text by the artist Artie Vierkant called \u201cThe Image Object Post-Internet\u201d, written in 2010, which could be regarded as a kind of manifesto of this artistic trend.<\/p>\n

Specialised studies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some Remarks on the Concept of Experiment and Its Role in Critical Theory Discourse
\n<\/strong>Kamil N\u00e1b\u011blek<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>The essay is about experiment in art. It distinguishes the scientific-research experiment from artistic experiment (artistic experimentation). Experiment in art is seen as the practice of methods and techniques with no possibility of their full control. An artistic experiment is also shown to be related to the concept of experientia<\/em>. The concept of experiment is treated in the context of selfunderstanding in the humanities in opposition to the methods of the natural sciences. In conclusion, the author attempts to integrate art theory and art practice, especially with regard to the context of \u201ctacit, performative knowledge\u201d.<\/p>\n

Keywords\u00a0<\/strong>experiment \u2013 artistic experiment \u2013 modern art \u2013 tacit knowledge \u2013 knowledge systems<\/p>\n

Author\u00a0<\/strong>Czech Republic, The Faculty of Art and Architecture of Technical University Liberec,\u00a0<\/em>kamil.nabelek@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018Although There Was a Plan\u2026\u2019: The Research Institute for Building and Architecture and the Experimental Housing Construction in the Late Fifties and Early Sixties
\n<\/strong>Mark\u00e9ta \u017d\u00e1\u010dkov\u00e1
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This contribution discusses experimental tendencies in building and architecture in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It focuses particularly on the mass housing that was meant to have been based on work of the Research Institute for Building and Architecture (V\u00daVA). At that time, the Institute was commissioned to provide the theoretical basis for the experimental construction which should have later been transferred into standardization and introduced into production. In V\u00daVA work, the term \u201cexperiment\u201d was interpreted very pragmatically in its elementary meaning \u2013 namely, the verification of the building and technological processes. The results of their research were meant to determine later work in the form of experimental projects and construction. The questionable outcomes of its practice, however, provide evidence of an essential discrepancy between the research and reality of architecture and urban planning.
\nKeywords:\u00a0<\/strong>Research Institute for Building and Architecture \u2013 V\u00daVA \u2013 Stavoprojekt \u2013 socialism \u2013 Czechoslovakia \u2013 Brno \u2013 architecture \u2013 urban planning \u2013 spatial planning \u2013 built environment \u2013 investment housing \u2013 complex housing development \u2013 theory of architecture and urban planning \u2013 experiment
\nAuthor:\u00a0<\/strong>Czech Republic, The Faculty of Fine Art the Brno University of Technology,\u00a0<\/em>zackovamark@seznam.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Echoes of the Wrong Laughter: Post-Internet Art and the Culture Industry
\n<\/strong>V\u00e1clav Magid<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>The essay focuses on a new art movement called \u201cPost-Internet\u201d and its approach to the Culture Industry. In the first parts of the article the author introduces the reader to the main facts about the so-called \u201cPost-Internet Condition\u201d, in which the Internet becomes a banal aspect of our everyday lives, and about \u201cPost-Internet Art\u201d as a response to this overall change in the cultural climate. In the following sections the author examines the ambitions of Post-Internet Art with regard to the Culture Industry, comparing and contrasting the conceptual apparatus of Critical Theory with a current political tendency known as Accelerationism. The analysis of Post-Internet Art as represented by the DIS collective leads the author to conclude that this recent movement reinforces the ubiquitous power of the Culture Industry while harmlessly parodying its forms and strategies. The effect is the \u201cwrong laughter\u201d, which \u201cechoes the inescapability of power\u201d.<\/p>\n

Keywords\u00a0<\/strong>Post-Internet \u2013 Culture Industry \u2013 DIS collective \u2013 Accelerationism<\/p>\n

Author\u00a0<\/strong>Czech Republic, Department of Aesthetic Faculty of Philosophy & Arts Charles University in Prague; editor in chief Notebook for Art, theory and related zones,\u00a0<\/em>vaclavmagid@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

2014 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 16<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>The 16th issue of The Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones contains three texts examining the different forms the avant-garde took during the 1950s and 60s, a short essay on the philosophical interpretation of photography, and a review of a publication on architecture. In an article based on her talk at last year\u2019s conference organised by the AVU Academic Research Centre entitled \u201cBetween creation and production. Transformations in the artistic process\u201d, Hana Buddeus compares different approaches to the photographic documentation of happenings, emphasising the significance of its legendary precursors Jackson Pollock and Vladim\u00edr Boudn\u00edk. Having studied Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159\u2019s correspondence and other archival sources, Tom\u00e1\u0161 Pospiszyl untangles the web of contacts between Czechoslovak artists and the Fluxus movement in the 1960s. The winner of the first year of the competition for best article by a student, Lenka Brabcov\u00e1 Kr\u0161iakov\u00e1, examines the work of Daniel Buren using a conceptual framework taken from Miroslav Pet\u0159\u00ed\u010dek\u2019s book Thinking by the Image. In a text entitled \u201cFran\u00e7ois Laruelle on Photography\u201d, Tom\u00e1\u0161 Kobl\u00ed\u017eek responds to Laruelle\u2019s book The Concept of Non-Photography, whose thesis he confronts with the literary procedures of Alain Robbe-Grillet. This edition of the Notebook ends with a review by Jana Pavlov\u00e1 of an anthology edited by Monika Mit\u00e1\u0161ov\u00e1 entitled Oxymoron and Pleonasm II.<\/p>\n

Specialized studies:<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Tom\u00e1\u0161 Pospiszyl, \u201cJi\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159 and Fluxus\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>This essay follows on from Pavl\u00edna Morganov\u00e1\u2019s article \u201cThe Meaning of the Word Is Its Use: Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159 \u2013 Yoko Ono\u201d, published in the last issue of this journal, as well as following on from other articles concerned with the relationship between Czechoslovak artists and members of the international neo-avantgarde associated with the Fluxus group. Based on new archival research, the essay traces and details the direct contacts between the Fluxus founder George Maciunas and Czech artists and critics in the second half of the 1960s. It compares the differences in the attitudes of Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159 and Milan Kn\u00ed\u017e\u00e1k towards the international art scene. Whereas Kol\u00e1\u0159 was cautious in his treatment of invitations for collaboration from abroad and did not leave the field of experimental literature, Kn\u00ed\u017e\u00e1k \u2013 though critical of some aspects of the Fluxus movement \u2013 easily identified with the general goals of the global neo-avantgarde and took active part in it.
\nKeywords <\/strong>Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159 \u2013 Fluxus \u2013 George Maciunas \u2013 Milan Kn\u00ed\u017e\u00e1k \u2013 international art contacts \u2013experimental art
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic,<\/em> FAMU Center for audiovisual studies in Prague and Academy of Fine Arts in Prague,<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>tomszyl@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Hana Buddeus, \u201cThe Photographic Conditions of Happening\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>In the art world, the upsurge of interest in photography has always been a corollary of the shift in emphasis from the art object to the process or perhaps to the activation of the viewer. Once the artwork itself had been withdrawn in favour of the action, photography began to play the important role of the mediator. The phrase \u2018photographic conditions\u2019 was coined by Judith Rodenbeck, in her book on Allan Kaprow, in connection with the happening and its inclusion in art history. Following on from her concept, this article compares Kaprow and his approach to photographic documentation with the the work of Czechs, specifically Milan Kn\u00ed\u017e\u00e1k, and points out the difference in the models of adopting predecessors. Whereas Kaprow alludes to Jackson Pollock, Kn\u00ed\u017e\u00e1k denies that the happening had any forerunners, and it is only the art historians who see Vladim\u00edr Boudn\u00edk in this role. Both Pollock and Boudn\u00edk entered art history as legendary figures whose existence is attested to in photographs capturing them at work. These photographic representations correspond to the ideal of the solitary creator \u2013 the modernist genius \u2013 while establishing the myth of the artist entering the space and a dialogue with the viewer. It is therefore supposed that in Boudn\u00edk (as in Pollock, albeit based on a different trajectory of development) a certain stage of conditions existed which enabled the subsequent evolution and the inclusion of the happening into art history by means of photographic documentation. The retrograde institutionalization (and commercialization) of the happening through documentary photography appears not to have been an incidental paradox; rather it is fair to see it as an obvious consequence of the fact that photography has helped to connect this type of creation with the realm of visual art.
\nKeywords <\/strong>photographic documentation \u2013 happening \u2013 art history \u2013 Allan Kaprow \u2013 Milan Kn\u00ed\u017e\u00e1k \u2013 Jackson Pollock \u2013 Vladim\u00edr Boudn\u00edk
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, Department of Theory and History of Art, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague,<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>hana.buddeus@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Lenka Brabcov\u00e1 Kr\u0161iakova, \u201cThinking in Images in Daniel Buren\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>In this article some of the ideas and concepts that the Czech contemporary philosopher Miroslav Pet\u0159\u00ed\u010dek discusses in his book My\u0161len\u00ed obrazem <\/em>(Thinking in images, 2009) are applied to the work of the French artist Daniel Buren. In the first part of the article, Buren\u2019s art is briefly characterized. The article then deals with the \u201cimagery of the image\u201d in relation to Buren\u2019s work. Imagery of the image in visual art is what turns colour, lines, and planes into an image. It is specific to art and cannot be translated into any other medium, not even language. Pet\u0159\u00ed\u010dek suggests that the \u201cimagery of the image\u201d is characterized by several features, including the principle of formation \u2013 a system that manifests itself in the way a work is formed. Other features of the \u201cimagery of the image\u201d which are addressed here are perceiving and conceiving reality and understanding that works of art are images projecting different slices of reality. The second part of the article is predominantly focused on the concept of frames, frameworks, borders and limits, and how they relate to Buren\u2019s work. The fact that art is framed by a theoretical framework is discussed in connection with this. Other topics addressed here and applied to Buren\u2019s work in the second part of the article include borders and limits in art, the liquidity of shape, and the comprehensibility given by a work\u2019s framing.
\nKeywords <\/strong>Imagery of the image \u2013 slice of reality \u2013 Daniel Buren \u2013 frames and borders \u2013 Miroslav Pet\u0159\u00ed\u010dek
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, Department of Arts Faculty of Philosophy & Arts Charles University in Prague,\u00a0<\/em>lenka.krs@volny.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom\u00e1\u0161 Kobl\u00ed\u017eek, \u201cLaruelle on Photography\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>Drawing a comparison with Alain Robbe-Grillet\u2019s approach to literature, this essay comments on Fran\u00e7ois Laruelle\u2019s theory of photography. Both authors emphasize implicit, non-objective aspects of the particular medium they discuss: Robbe-Grillet refers to the subjectivity or the \u2018subjective gaze\u2019 which is ubiquitous in his novels; Laruelle talks of the power of seeing which is revealed in photography. Nevertheless, the two approaches are significantly different from each other. Whereas Robbe- Grillet sees subjectivity as intentionally bound to its object, Laruelle considers the power of seeing to be condensed in itself. According to Laruelle, photography presents a special dimension of seeing which is not \u2013 strictly speaking \u2013 related to objects.
\nAuthor<\/strong> Czech Republic, <\/em>The Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic,\u00a0<\/em>tomas.koblizek@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

2013 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 15<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>In the 15th edition of Se\u0161it we continue to publish essays based on contributions given at the conference “Between East and West. How was fine art written about in post-war Czechoslovakia?” Beata Jablonsk\u00e1 familiarises us with the dramatic discussion on the role of the image “More” by J\u00falius Koller in relation to the birth of conceptualism in Slovakia. In an examination of period debates, Josef Ledvina shows that the “historical truth” of postmodern art resides in the very form of the dispute around its definition. The text by Pavl\u00edna Morgan also links up to the theme of the conference and is entitled “The meaning of a word resides in the way it is used. Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159 – Yoko Ono”. The last essay in this edition of the magazine is by Karina Pfeiffer Kottov\u00e1 and is entitled “The institutional avant-garde”. It focuses on current self-critical strategies of contemporary art galleries and collections.<\/p>\n

Specialised studies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beata Jablonsk\u00e1, \u201cControversy over the Slovak \u2018Sea\u2019\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>There is a continuing debate in Slovak art history on whether the label of \u201cthe first conceptual work of art\u201d belongs to J\u00falius Koller\u2019s painting The Sea <\/em>(1963\u20131964) or to Alex Mlyn\u00e1r\u010dik, Stanislav Filko, and Zita Kostrov\u00e1\u2019s project Happsoc I <\/em>and II <\/em>(1965). Koller\u2019s claim to the label is harder to defend since his painting does not comply with the dictionary definition of conceptualism. The very existence of the unresolved debate, however, demonstrates that the painting plays a more important role in the history of Slovak conceptual art than has been admitted in some canonical art history essays about conceptual art in Slovakia. The Sea <\/em>has several times provided an opportunity for theoretical disputes that went beyond its \u201cframe\u201d and spoke to the sources and character of conceptualism. It is reasonable to say that one can now hardly find a more controversial artwork in Slovak art history, paradoxically not because of its radical nature, but because it remained true to a traditional medium. I argue here that the chronological aspect of the dispute has provided a battleground for a larger debate about the character of conceptual art and its place in the history of Slovak art.
\nKeywords <\/strong>conceptual art \u2013 Slovak art \u2013 J\u00falius Koller \u2013 conceptual painting \u2013 Tom\u00e1\u0161 \u0160trauss \u2013 Jana Ger\u017eov\u00e1 \u2013 Aurel Hrabu\u0161ick\u00fd
\nAuthor <\/strong>Slovakia, Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava<\/em>, jablonska@vsvu.sk<\/a><\/p>\n

Josef Ledvina, \u201cOn the <\/strong>Historical <\/em><\/strong>Truth of Postmodern Art\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>The essay explores different and often conflicting definitions of the concept of postmodernism as presented by various art historians, critics, and theorists on the Czech art scene in the 1980s. The essay does not search for the \u201chistorical truth\u201d of the concept in any of those definitions, nor does it seek a synthesis that would overcome the contradictions amongst them. Instead it locates the truth in the struggle for the dominant definition. In \u201cLou\u010den\u00ed s modernismem\u201d (A Farewell to Modernism), a key Czech essay by Jana \u0160ev\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1 and Ji\u0159\u00ed \u0160ev\u010d\u00edk, the leading figures of the Czech postmodern turn, postmodern art is treated as the New Art and set against the depleted late modern art of the previous generations. Thus the question of postmodern art becomes a question of new, contemporary, and so, in a sense, true art. Besides the \u0160ev\u010d\u00edks, the other participants in the struggle who are discussed in the essay were the art historian and critic Josef Kroutvor, the art historian Jan K\u0159\u00ed\u017e, the aesthetician and art theorist Josef Hlav\u00e1\u010dek, the art historian and artist Vladim\u00edr Skrepl, and the philosopher, writer, and guru of the Czech underground Egon Bondy.
\nKeywords <\/strong>postmodernism \u2013 1980s \u2013 Jana \u0160ev\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1 and Ji\u0159\u00ed \u0160ev\u010d\u00edk \u2013 New Painting \u2013 art criticism \u2013 art theory
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, Department of Arts Faculty of Philosophy & Arts Charles University in Prague<\/em>,\u00a0pledvina@googlemail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Pavl\u00edna Morganov\u00e1, \u201cThe Meaning of the Word Is Its Use: Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159 \u2013 Yoko Ono\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract<\/strong> The fascinating similarity of two slender books created on each side of the Iron Curtain in the mid-1960s was the impetus for this article. The works in question are the final book of poetry by Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159, entitled Instructions for Use<\/em>, completed in 1965, and Grapefruit: A Book<\/em> of Instructions and Drawings <\/em>by Yoko Ono from 1964. The conceptual nature of Yoko Ono\u2019s individual poems and \u201cevent scores\u201d is derived from the haiku, and also resonates with the experimental methods of the New York Neo-avant-garde of the early 1960s. Many of Kol\u00e1\u0159\u2019s poem-instructions take a similar approach, inviting the reader to enact the poems either in his or her imagination or in reality. It is strange that such seemingly similar approaches arose in such different environments. How could it be that two individuals from such differing standpoints achieved such similar results in the 1960s? The article aims to answer that question.
\nKeywords <\/strong>Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159 \u2013 Yoko Ono \u2013 event scores \u2013 Fluxus \u2013 experimental poetry \u2013 collage
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, director of the Research Center and vice-rector for study affairs at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague<\/em>, pavlina.morganova@avu.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

Karina Pfeiffer Kottov\u00e1, \u201cThe Institutional Avant-garde\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>Discussing authors such as Nina M\u00f6ntmann, Brian O\u2019Doherty, Sven L\u00fctticken, and Jan Verwoert, this article assesses some of the major questions and challenges concerning the notion of \u201cnew institutionalism\u201d and the so-called \u201chybridization\u201d of institutions that present contemporary art. The term \u201cnew institutionalism\u201d, which the art world borrowed from sociology, emphasizes the resistance of these institutions to commercialization or politicization by means of an engaged, critical approach both towards their programmes and towards the possibilities of working with visitors. This largely theoretical concept faces a range of challenges in practice: in order to achieve the ideal, institutions have to resolve problems connected to financing, promotion, management, and external and internal demands for their programming as well as for their target groups and educational or communication strategies.
\nKeywords <\/strong>New Institutionalism \u2013 white cube \u2013 transformation \u2013 hybridization \u2013 public \u2013 participation
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, Department of Arts Faculty of Philosophy & Arts Masaryk University in Brno<\/em>, karina@meetfactory.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

2013 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 14<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>Three of the essays contained in the 14th edition of Se\u0161it are based on contributions to the conference “Between East and West. How was fine art written about in post-war Czechoslovakia?” that was held in November 2012 at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. In a text entitled “Punkva. Where is Marxism in Czech art history?” Milena Bartlov\u00e1 explores the fate of Marxist methods in the Czech post-war history of art. In “Space for Differentiation”, Jan Wollner attempts to reconstruct the “discussion on space” that took place in the 1960s around Jan Pato\u010dka. Martina Pachmanov\u00e1 focuses her attention on Chalupeck\u00fd’s writings on women and femininity in art. There follows an interview with Rostislav \u0160v\u00e1cha on the development of the methodology of Czech art history after 1948. The magazine ends with a review by Tom\u00e1\u0161 Jirsa of the book Silent Revolutions in Ornament by Lada Hubatov\u00e1-Vackov\u00e1.<\/p>\n

Specialised studies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Milena Bartlov\u00e1, \u201cA Lost River: Where Is Marxism in Czech Art History?\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>This essay seeks to answer whether there was a genuinely Marxist current in Czech art history writing in the second half of the twentieth century, and, if so, what form it took. The essay argues for the central importance of Jarom\u00edr Neumann\u2019s methodological approach, which adapted a simplified version of Panofsky\u2019s post-war iconology to the demands of the prevalent Marxist-Leninist ideology of Czechoslovak institutions. This approach was legitimized by its adopting Max Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s \u201cart history as the history of the spirit\u201d and purportedly translating it into materialist terms. In this way, Czech art history could both free itself from previous uncertainties regarding correct Marxist method and become officially acceptable, while remaining deeply entrenched in the tacitly tolerated practice of the elite cultural tradition of what was then called \u201cbourgeois humanism\u201d.
\nKeywords <\/strong>Marxism \u2013 art history \u2013 methodology \u2013 historiography \u2013 Czechoslovakia \u2013 iconology \u2013 Jarom\u00edr Neumann
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, Department of Theory and History of Art, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague<\/em>, bartlova.m@seznam.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

Jan Wollner, \u201cTracing Space\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>In 1960, the philosopher Jan Pato\u010dka sent the art historian V\u00e1clav Richter a birthday present. The present consisted of a treatise on space written especially for the occasion. Despite working in different fields, Pato\u010dka and Richter shared a long-standing interest in the nature of space, which was a common topic of their discussions. Since there was no convenient platform for an inter-disciplinary debate on the topic, their ruminations never developed into a public discussion, but instead assumed the private, even intimate, form of a birthday present. A similar pattern applied elsewhere, too. The subject of space had become a relevant topic of discussion in various fields of research in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. These discussions did not lead to any conference, exhibition, or anthology, but lingered in the form of private conversations, diary entries, and birthday presents. The aim of this essay is to assemble these ephemeral fragments and to create a post-factum platform for a discussion of space, which could not take place openly at its proper time, yet has continued to have a kind of virtual existence.
\nKeywords <\/strong>philosophy \u2013 Phenomenology \u2013 Jan Pato\u010dka \u2013 space \u2013 sculpture \u2013 architecture \u2013 theory of architecture \u2013 art history
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague<\/em>,\u00a0jan.wollner@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Martina Pachmanov\u00e1, \u201cSilence about Feminism and \u2018Femininity\u2019 as an Aesthetic Value: Czech Woman Artists through the Eyes of Jind\u0159ich Chalupeck\u00fd\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>In his article \u201cThe Framing of Central Europe\u201d, Piotr Piotrowski wrote in the late 1990s: \u201cThe Art of Eastern and of Western Europe each speaks a similar language but in reality it communicates different meanings dictated by a \u2018frame\u2019 that we activate.\u201d When we examine art history during the Cold War and the language in which visual art was written about, it is important to consider not only the differences of the concepts and terms used, but also the terms that were marginalized and obscured, and their social, cultural, and ideological \u201cframes\u201d. This article focuses on a key term of post-war Western art which was expelled from both official and unofficial discussions about visual art \u2013 namely, feminist art. It argues that ideological and gender prejudices rather than a lack of information caused Czech art historians and critics continuously to ignore the diversity of feminist art and feminism during the 1970s and 1980s. Taking a rare example of Jind\u0159ich Chalupeck\u00fd\u2019s writing about women artists, the article documents how the Western feminist art discourse was neutralized during \u201cnormalization\u201d (the period that followed the defeat of the pro-reform movement of 1968), by using the much less radical, apolitical term \u201cwomen\u2019s art\u201d or \u2013 even more significantly \u2013 by biologically determined \u201cfemininity\u201d in art.
\nKeywords <\/strong>Women\u2019s art \u2013 Feminism \u2013 Jind\u0159ich Chalupeck\u00fd \u2013 Czech post-war art \u2013 East \u2013 West
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague<\/em>, pachmanova@vsup.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

2012 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 13<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>This edition of Notebook examines three ways in which theory and the practice of art interact: 1) the radical political statements of two artistic groups flirting with internal contradictions (Tereza Stejskalov\u00e1, “The M\u00e9nage a trios of Theory, Art, and Politics”); 2) the attempts by art criticism to adapt an apparently apposite concept to a different context (Tom\u00e1\u0161 Posp\u011bch, “Visualism and Its Notion of Photography as Photography”); 3) activity in the ambiguous zone of “recent” art, in which the differences are blurred between criticism and the history of art (Milena Bartlov\u00e1, “What Does It Mean to Write Art History?”). There is also a translation of an essay by Andreas M\u00fcller-Pohle entitled “Visualism” that links up to the article by Posp\u011bch, and a review of the monograph by Milena Bartlov\u00e1 entitled Genuine Presence.<\/p>\n

Specialised studies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tereza Stejskalov\u00e1, \u201cThe <\/strong>M\u00e9nage a trois <\/em><\/strong>of Theory, Art, and Politics: Claire Fontaine and Chto Delat?\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract<\/strong> The essay focuses on leftist theorists and philosophers who participate in art collectives in order to pursue the practical dimension of philosophy (the transformation of subjects) through artistic practice. The activities of two art groups \u2013 the Paris-based Claire Fontaine and the Russian collective Chto Delat? \u2013 are examined for that purpose. Employing the written word to highlight the ways in which their art should be understood or acting paternalistically, both groups are considered part of the didactic tradition in art. In their theoretical writings and statements, however, these groups refuse the authority of the author (Claire Fontaine) or call for egalitarian pedagogies (Chto Delat?). The conflict between what these collectives explicitly claim and their didactic gesture is taken to reflect a deeper problem in radical-left discourse today.
\nKeywords <\/strong>Claire Fontaine \u2013 Chto Delat? \u2013 theory \u2013 politics \u2013 subject \u2013 didactic
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, <\/em>Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, The Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague<\/em>, terezastejskalova@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom\u00e1\u0161 Posp\u011bch, \u201cVisualism and Its Notion of Photography as Photography\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>The aim of this essay is to shed light on how the term \u201cVisualism\u201d as defined in the West has gradually become established in Eastern Europe, particularly in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and on the transformations it has undergone along the way. The essay considers the interpretations of the Visualist programme by Andreas M\u00fcller-Pohle in essays by Anton\u00edn Dufek, Bo\u0159ek Soused\u00edk, and Jerzy Olek. The point is not to redeem Visualism from its local misinterpretations, since what might appear to be a misunderstanding may more fruitfully be read as a strategy of adapting a conception to local conditions. One of the questions raised here is when and why the notions of live photography, the snapshot, the documentary photo, and subjective photography ceased to be convenient descriptions of a certain kind of photography and the urge for a new label emerged.
\nKeywords <\/strong>visualism \u2013 photography \u2013 Central Europe \u2013 Andreas M\u00fcller-Pohle \u2013 Anton\u00edn Dufek \u2013 Bo\u0159ek Soused\u00edk \u2013 Jerzy Olek
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, The Institute of Creative Photography Silesian University in Opava<\/em>,\u00a0potom@volny.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

Milena Bartlov\u00e1, \u201cWhat Does It Mean to Write Art History?\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>This essay seeks to offer to those who try to write the history of contemporary art an overview of the methodological debate that has been carried on in the historiography of art in recent decades. It charts the notions of historical representation, the nature of the subject, the object, and the narrative, as well as the role of conceptual models. Besides focusing on the discursive construction of (art) history, it also considers its construction by means of an exhibition in a given setting.
\nKeywords <\/strong>art history \u2013 methodology \u2013 historiography \u2013 writing art history \u2013 contemporary art
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, Department of Theory and History of Art, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague<\/em>, bartlova.m@seznam.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

2012 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 12<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>The 12th issue of Se\u0161it (Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones) contains four texts, each relating to a different sphere of visual culture. The essay on theoretical architecture by Martina Sedl\u00e1kov\u00e1 entitled “Between the Abstract and the Concrete. Tadao And\u00f3 and his Concept of Architectonic Space” examines And\u00f3’s thematisation of the relationship between the “abstract” and the “concrete” and the dialectic of emptiness and fullness, and considers his unique cultural position at the intersection of the influences of traditional Japanese and modern Western architecture. In her article “Public Privacy as a Model of Neo-conceptual Art” Nina Vrbanov\u00e1 argues that a characteristic feature of neo-conceptualism is the selection of expressive resources on the basis of content, and that this is therefore not a style so much as a strategy. The text by Karel C\u00edsa\u0159 entitled “The History of Contemporary Art within a Narrow Field” is a critique of Czech theoretical reflections on postmodernism in the visual arts provoked by the anthology Czech Art 1980-2010. Finally, in his extensive essay “‘Marks of Indifference’: Aspects of Photography in, or as, Conceptual Art”, Jeff Wall highlights the historical paradoxes involved in the search for the artistic status of photography.<\/p>\n

Specialised studies:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Martina Sedl\u00e1kov\u00e1, \u201cBetween Abstract and Real: Ando\u2019s Concept of Architectonic Space\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>This article is concerned with the Japanese architect Tadao Ando\u2019s concept of architectural space. Ando\u2019s work holds a specific place in the architecture of recent decades. His formal vocabulary is deeply rooted in Modernism, while simultaneously providing a critical approach to the modernist pattern of thinking and mainly its \u201cby-product of homogenized space\u201d. Starting from the topic of the \u201cwall\u201d, and continuing with \u201cnatural features\u201d, the first of which is light, Ando arrives at the problem of architectural space. He returns to the theme of the wall as the main architectural element which delineates an architectural space, but he emphasizes the presence of space within the walls. The delineation of architectural space is manifested by employing pure geometric forms and focusing on \u201cmateriality\u201d in a special way. His oscillating between the \u201cabstract\u201d (\u201carchitectural reason\u201d \u2013 geometry) and the \u201creal\u201d (\u201crepresentation\u201d \u2013 corporeality, natural features, people and places, geographical and cultural contexts) points to the core of his concept. Ando\u2019s approach to architecture is a kind of dialogue between East and West, between traditional local culture and modern architectural culture. His early concept presents a challenge to contemporary architecture because of his radical stands as well as his thought-provoking theoretical views of space (his reverse perspective, influenced by Western architecture), while continuing with the spatial tradition of Japanese culture, which from the very beginning influenced the new concept of space in Western modern architecture. Ando\u2019s conception of space, as it emerges in his writings, could reasonably be understood in more general terms as a contribution to the ontology of space in architecture.
\nKeywords <\/strong>space \u2013 wall \u2013 light \u2013 architecture
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, Department of Theory and History of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture CTU in Prague<\/em>, martina.sedlakova@fa.cvut.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

Nina Vrbanov\u00e1, \u201cPublic Privacy as a Model of Neoconceptual Art\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>This essay treats Neo-conceptual art as a specific strategy within visual arts, which goes beyond its being customarily understood as a clear-cut formal style. The essay outlines new possibilities for interpreting it this way, while considering the mutual conditionality of the visual and ideological bases of this segment of contemporary art. It describes how ideas behind it determine its form, freeing it from stylistic and media restrictions and making it dependent on strategies employed. Neo-conceptual art becomes an open platform, drawing from a reservoir of the possible visual forms on offer in today\u2019s world. The essay compares the radical (dematerialized) Conceptualism of the 1960s to the current Neo-conceptual wave, which shows a limited return to the traditional (modernist) understanding of art forms, while staying true to the crucial postulates of the original Conceptualist movement. The second part examines Neo-conceptual artistic strategies, using the example of the paradoxical notion of public privacy, which is identified as one of the dominant ideological lines of Neo-conceptualism in Slovakia since the mid- 1990s. In conclusion, the author notes that the analysis of Neo-conceptual art as practised by art historians today would not be complete without considering the hybridity of themes and ideas. This would substantially reverse the methodological discourse of Neo-conceptualism in Slovakia.
\nKeywords <\/strong>contemporary aesthetics \u2013 visual arts \u2013 neoconceptualism \u2013 public privacy
\nAuthor <\/strong>Slovakia, Department of Communication <\/em>The Faculty of Arts at Konstantin Filozof University in Nitra<\/em>, nina.vrbanova@ukf.sk<\/a><\/p>\n

Karel C\u00edsa\u0159, \u201cThe History of Contemporary Art in a Narrowed Field\u201d
\n<\/strong>Abstract <\/strong>This article, originally presented at the symposium \u201cCreating the History of Contemporary Art\u201d organized by the Research Centre of the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, deals with what proves to be a symptomatic omission from the anthology \u010cesk\u00e9 um\u011bn\u00ed 1980\u20132010 <\/em>([Czech art, 1980\u20132010] Prague: VVP AVU, 2011) \u2013 namely, the failure to take into account Rosalind Krauss\u2019s \u201cSculpture in the Expanded Field\u201d. This silence is no accident; the works of Krauss had previously received almost no attention in the Czech milieu, and their impact became palpable in Czech art-historical writing only recently. It has been Krauss who, ever since The Originality of the Avant-garde and Other Modernist Myths<\/em> (1986), has interpreted postmodernism not as a \u201cfarewell to modernism\u201d, but as a perspective that allows us to seek the terms and conditions for topics like the copy and reproduction, the reproducibility of sign, and textual production in modernity. What is symptomatic of the omission is not just that it betrays the hidden assumptions of the editors and their notions of the relationship between modernity and postmodernism, but also, indeed what is more important, that it is a sign of a deeper regression of Czech theory, turning its inability to deal with relevant foreign sources into a virtue that either leads to a productive misunderstanding of art manifestos or, worse, to a quasi-theoretical discovery of the already discovered.
\nKeywords <\/strong>Rosalind Krauss \u2013 postmodernism \u2013 modernism \u2013 Jana \u0160ev\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1 \u2013 Ji\u0159\u00ed \u0160ev\u010d\u00edk \u2013 art history \u2013 Czech art
\nAuthor <\/strong>Czech Republic, <\/em>The Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and <\/em>Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague<\/em>, cisar@vsup.cz<\/a><\/p>\n

2011 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 11<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>The eleventh issue of Se\u0161it features another three texts that were originally contributions at this year’s annual AVU Research Centre conference “The Consequences of Conceptualism”. In his essay “Photography after Conceptual Art”, Karel C\u00edsa\u0159 compares two ways of interpreting the impact of conceptualism on photography; one outlined by Jeff Wall in his influential text “Marks of Indifference” and the second prepared by Rosalind Krauss in works from the past decade. In his article “Breakpoint. In Search of a Social Change in Czech Art” Jan Z\u00e1le\u0161\u00e1k focuses on exhibitions from 1997 to 1999, which in his view represent an essential milestone in the legitimisation process of overtly socially and politically engaged art projects. Daniel Gr\u00fa\u0148 writes on different ways of working with the medium of the artist archive in Central and Eastern Europe in his text “The Artist Archive – A Parallel Institution or the Means for Self-Historicisation?” The issue concludes with a translation of a text written by a Parisian collective of artist using the pseudonym Claire Fontaine that critically analyses changes in artistic subjectivity through the influence of market conditions of the worldwide art business.<\/p>\n

2011 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 10<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>In this year’s first Notebook there’s an increased emphasis on the “related zones” mentioned in its title. This issue opens with Karel Stibral’s take on BioArt. Another “related zone” is represented by two texts from the theory or philosophy of literature. Petr Ko\u0165\u00e1tko’s study, which finds in literature approaches akin to conceptual art, is derived from the contribution that the author gave at the “Consequences of Conceptualism” conference organized by the AVU Research Center in the spring of that year. Tom\u00e1\u0161 Kobl\u00edzek’s essay “Testimony and Singularity” elaborates on a vision of the study of literature, drawn from the concept of testimony developed by \u00c9mile Benveniste, but also takes into consideration the concept of a unique sign formulated in Barthes’ Camera Lucida. By including a translation of Nicolas Bourriaud’s “Altermodern” we continue to publish recent programmatic curatorial writings. V\u00e1clav Magid’s review is on the anthology What Is Art? published last year and mapping the discussion of possibilities for defining art in the Anglo-American philosophy of the latter half of the twentieth century.<\/p>\n

2010 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 9<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>The theme of reflection upon the history and the present state of the relationship between Czech visual arts and society passes like a red thread through the ninth issue of Se\u0161it. In his essay Czech Art around 1980 as a Field of Cultural Production Josef Ledvina draws from French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s work Rules of Art (Brno: Host 2010) as a methodological manual, through which he presents an institutional analysis of the Czech art scene circa 1980. In her overview Czech Art During the Transformation Period. The Relations of Art and ‘Engagement’ she interprets the development of the Czech art scene from the 1980s to the end or the century through the prism of art engag\u00e9. Martin \u0160kabraha’s essay What the Eye Doesn’t See. Aesthetic Politics and the Politics of Aesthetics in the Planetary Age presents an attempt to apply a question regarding the possibilities of and reasons for a state’s subsidizing of art to the context of dramatic changes which the traditional post-Westphalian concept of a sovereign national state is undergoing in globalization. Milena Bartlov\u00e1’s contribution Cultural Politics and the Politics of Culture. Czech Republic 2010, a Questionnaire assesses the current state of Czech cultural policies against the backdrop of changes that Czech society has undergone over the past twenty years. In his review of Dorothea von Hantelmann’s book How to Do Things with Art, Jakub Stejskal analyzes the author’s attempt to join art’s social function with its performance aspects.<\/p>\n

2010 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 8<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>This issue features three original reviewed specialised studies. Sylva Pol\u00e1kov\u00e1’s text focuses on the convergences of film and architecture that she follows, for instance, in works on the streets of Prague in recent years. In his study on “critical curatorship” Jan Z\u00e1le\u0161\u00e1k writes on the transformations of roles of the artist and of the curator in the era following institutional criticism. Tereza Stejskalov\u00e1 analyses the situation of three female artists and their departure from the art scene, as well as the attention that is given to it within this sphere. Her text refers to Hal Foster’s well known article “What’s Neo about the Neo Avant-Garde”, whose Czech translation immediately follows. A manifesto by the curators of this year’s Manifesta is printed as a document of contemporary art and curatorial practices. The issue concludes with a review of the exhibition Gender Check that was held at the beginning of this year at Vienna’s MUMOK.<\/p>\n

2009 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 6-7<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>The double issue 6-7 of Notebook focuses on aesthetics and its complicated relationship to contemporary visual art and culture in general. Aesthetics professes the conviction that there exists a specific mode of a man’s relationship to the world that artists strive to mediate. Expressions such as detachment, beauty, purposiveness without a purpose, aesthetic experience and aesthetic judgement have been traditionally linked to this relationship. Over the past fifty years these terms have been exposed to harsh criticism in the area of art theory. The history of Western art, as it were, charged aesthetic theory with being obsolete. But an unavoidable choice awaited art theory, which wanted to free itself from aesthetics. either defend the existence of its subject in radically new terms, or resign itself to the fact that its subject is something specific that requires its own category. Both possibilities offered both promises and pitfalls. Attempts at giving new responses to “What is art?” proved extremely unsatisfactory. And the increasingly apparent limitations of such responses led some to go back and rethink the configuration of modern art and the aesthetics line of discourse in which this configuration was formulated. The intellectual frame of modernist art is actually created by modern aesthetics. Therefore, if we want to understand what it means to be modern in art and whether it is good or bad, we must consider the vocabulary that is created in thinking through problems that may seem to us today to be beyond the realm of relevance. That is, at least the view shared by most of the authors represented in this issue of Notebook.<\/p>\n

2008 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 4-5<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>The subject of the double-issue, Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zone 4-5 for 2008 is the legacy of the Situationist International art-political movement (1957-1972) and its relevance for today. The issue contains one primary and three secondary texts on the subject (one original and two translations). The issue also contains articles (four original and three translated) that expand on several motifs related to the subject (the issue of representation, intervention in everyday life, the political involvement of art), both in the context of the reflection of art and everyday life in real socialism and within the framework of criticism of certain manifestations of contemporary Czech art.<\/p>\n

2007 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 3<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>The Notebook N. 3 is dedicated to the three questions comprising leitmotifs of the twelfth documenta exhibition in Kassel: “Is modernity our antiquity?” “What is bare life?” and “What is to be done?”. These three questions were put to selected Czech thinkers and publicists for their thoughts who are active outside the sphere of contemporary art. Along with the original contributions by Michael Hauser, Martin \u0160kabraha and Tom\u00e1\u0161 Samek, we are including several translated texts from the documenta 12 magazines project, selected to illuminate, deepen or problematize the three leitmotifs.<\/p>\n

2007 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 1-2<\/h3>\n

\"[cml_media_alt<\/a>The theme of the first double issue of the Notebook is collaboration and participation in current socially engaged art. Inside you will find the translations of texts by art critics Claire Bishop, Maria Lind, Christian Kravagna and Grant Kester, the presentations of artists Jan Ml\u010doch, Thomas Hirschhorn, Alfredo Jaar, Kate\u0159ina \u0160ed\u00e1 and of L\u00e1dv\u00ed art group, an academic text by Peter B\u00fcrger and an interview with a philosopher Jacques Ranciere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All the published contributions are free to download (in original language and layout, minor changes are made in case of any errata needed) in a one year delay on Czech version of this website. 2021 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 30 The thirtieth issue of Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":3550,"menu_order":63,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nArchive - VVP AVU<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/vvp.avu.cz\/en\/notebook\/archive\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Archive - VVP AVU\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"All the published contributions are free to download (in original language and layout, minor changes are made in case of any errata needed) in a one year delay on Czech version of this website. 2021 \/ Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones 30 The thirtieth issue of Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/vvp.avu.cz\/en\/notebook\/archive\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"VVP AVU\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/VVPAVU\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-04-27T21:15:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/vvp.avu.cz\/app\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Sesit_30_2021_obalka-300x428.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"114 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/vvp.avu.cz\/en\/notebook\/archive\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/vvp.avu.cz\/en\/notebook\/archive\/\",\"name\":\"Archive - 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