LOOKING THROUGH

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The artist divided the gallery space into two separate parts by a wall, or rather by a window. She put a grating there, the layout of which repeats the pattern of a glass facade of the gallery. The grating in the middle copies the glass facade pattern and transfers it to a different place – inside. The entrance is multiplied and the wall, which initially separated the interior and exterior and defined the border of what is inside and what is outside, suddenly relativizes the relationships in the surrounding space. The author emphasizes the relativity of opposition of the interior and exterior by her large-format, airy atmosphere paintings. If the grating in the middle points visitors’ attention to the glass facade (pre-painting), then the paintings also encourage visitors to look behind the window, outside the gallery, to verify the original copies of the paintings.

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LUCIA TALLOVÁ in her LOOKING THROUGH project works with the effect of mirroring or doubling – she intends to build poetic imagery, a kind of imaginative dream quality. (Gaston Bachellard, a phenomenologist of poetic imagination, would call it the air and water dreaming). COVID-19 virus triggered sudden change in the exhibition context – the viewers were not allowed to enter the interior and the entire artwork has transformed into a large-format assembly, architecturally framed, mirroring spatial projection – conserved, crystal landscape.

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We could perceive Lucia Tallová’s pictures as crystal landscapes, in which time appears and performs the space act (the term “picture-crystal”, or “time-crystal” is borrowed from Gilles Deleuze). Nevertheless, the time is not interpreted from the human perspective, but from the perspective of more powerful elements: the air and the earth. Those elements represent eternity, infinity full of changes. When perceiving the works of Lucia Tallová, the viewer is suddenly confronted with his finiteness. However, this finiteness does not convey the tragic meaning of the end, on the contrary, it reminds us of the steady order of the eternity. And this is what brings the dreamy expression or melancholy into the works of Lucia Tallová.

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PRAGOVKA GALLERY

Praha, Czech republic

Curated by Lucia Miklošková

14. September - 31. December 2020

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