Cheap Art

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  Cheap Art | 2018

The discussion on the topic of the upcoming environmental catastrophe and the related themes of sustainable development, nature conservation and ecology have steadily been making their way into Czechia. The joint work of Barbora Fastrová and Johana Pošová has however been developing and exploring the topic of the relationship between culture and nature, of the “natural” and the “artificial” for a long time. The method as well as content of their exhibition Cheap Art for AMU Gallery is recycling. The artists experiment with how far they can influence the preparation of the exhibition and its final form, as well as the audience’s experience of it. They attempt a conscientious approach and strictly use only recycled materials, as well as eschewing the use of electricity. This attempt at decreasing the production and consumption (of material and energy) is partly “an exercise” in which the artists themselves decide on the rules and the limitations of their work. This is a generally comprehensible gesture which reacts to the society of hyperconsumption, entailing also the art world; this however often hypocritically obfuscates the mechanisms of consumption and waste by implementing a so-called critical discourse. This exhibition project is also a form of immediate experience and an example of failure, tension and ambiguity in determining boundaries. The artists keep in mind the ecological standpoints while also wanting to continue exhibiting and making art. The central reason for producing the exhibition is not to present a perfectly ecological outcome, but rather to demonstrate in practice the difficulties and paradoxes resulting from working with such specific limitations.