March and April 2008
The architecture of Hilton Hotel/ let's call it Atrium at least while we're reading this text/ is unforgettable. At the time of its construction it represented the megalomania of the former regime. Our refusal of its dull aesthetics and stone-like shape was as quick as our discovery of the poetics of buildings by Pragr, Hubáček or the Machonin brothers…
The façade of the Atrium hotel by Stanislav Franc speaks through its deconstructivist elements in a brand new light and without the shadows of the past. More likely, it gives the impression of a square discoball with its night-light equalizer playing a minimalist composition from repeating structures of sounds. The bitten out corners finish such structure in the same way as the inevitable absences of sounds in the compositions of electronic experimental minimalism. The repetitive system of squares of the whole building is disturbed by the line of digital light defining the robotic deconstruction of the formerly-regular block.
The above game played with our senses attracts and fascinates, and it is no coincidence that the eye followed by Jirka Thýn's camera rested on it. He has already been described as "an experienced sculptor"1 by Dominik Lang, and his installation of large-format photographs in the etc. gallery only confirms this statement. He chose the night façade and the corners of the hotel for his "statues". With his perfectionist but sensitive approach he firmly sets the composition and creates takes that are unique for their use of light. More than the randomness of the scene, the capture of the right feeling from the rhythmical electronics that takes place in front of the viewer is crucial. And because the statement of 4 photographs, 4 corners was not enough for Thýn2, he supplemented the series of two-dimensional pictures with a video that he had long planned: shots from inside the building, introduced as an integral part of the whole project.
The whole of the installation, then, offers an unrepeatable spectacle. We observe the night façade from the outside and the internal atmosphere of the impressive atrium is reproduced for us through a slow sequence covered by a black rectangle. The mysticism of the empty space defined by the motionless "ramparts" is supported by the absurd counter-motion of both lifts. Thus Jirka Thýn exhibits "an object" that we can perceive though his sensitivity from all sides as well as from the inside.
1 Jiří Ptáček, interview with Dominik Lang about the exhibition Upgraded Model, Limping Effect dealing with the situation of Czech sculpture, Galerie NoD, Experimentální proctor Roxy/NoD, Dlouhá 33, Praha 01. 01.-11.09.
2 Apart from 4 photographs and a video, Thýn's installation also includes a photograph of a horizontal plastic figure 8 standing near the hotel.
Markéta Vinglerová, 2008
© 2007, etc. galerie
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