Robert Šalanda
Robert Šalanda's exhibition Extreme Realism is conceived as a painting presentation intervening in the existing gallery space of Trafo Gallery. The author appropriates it to a certain extent and transforms it according to his own needs. The environmental and complex nature of the project, which goes beyond the framework of the artistic discipline and its media sub-genres, is above all an open situation, which, based on certain relational constellations, declares questions of "presence". Presence as a complicated state that was and is no longer, but from which something ambiguous results, both for the viewer and the author. Something that can be read and interpreted differently. It is something like an "open story", which was reconstructed for the format of the exhibition based on the author's "presence in the process of creation".
The title Extreme Realism reveals the ambivalent feature of the exhibition concept, which is used here freely and shamelessly, similar to Šaland's previous projects (Unreliable Narrator, Hopeful Composition, Passive Perpetrator, etc.). Concepts in transformed contexts shine with new, often absurd meanings (something like the statements of a kind of pseudo-ideology), or at least they lose those that human consciousness relied on in its automatically set orientation. What is realism when it comes close to the word "extreme"?
The exhibition is accompanied by the publication of an author's catalog named after Šaland's older project THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR. The publication will include, among other things, an interview with the author as well as current photos directly from the exhibition installation.
Robert Šalanda (born 1976 in Olomouc) is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1995 – 2002; Malba I studio, School of Prof. Jiří Sopko). In 2000, he completed a study internship at the Facultad de Bellas Artes Cuenca in Spain. In 2011, a residency at ISCP in New York and in 2016 a residency at AIR Antwerp in Belgium and at MeetFactory in Prague. He is a co-founder of the Prague number plate gallery (2011). Since 2017, he has been working as the head teacher of the Malba I studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (AVU). His exhibition activity includes the following selected individual and collective projects: Who is the winner? (GVUO, Ostrava, 2018), Hopeful Composition (Vyšehrad Gallery, Prague 2017), Unreliable Narrator (1st Floor Gallery, Prague, 2017), Passive Offender (Futura Gallery, Prague, 2016), Czech Dream (Czech House, New York , 2015), I recommend (35m2 gallery, Prague, 2014), Treasures (Entrance gallery, Prague, 2014), 7 Nový Zlínský Salon (Zlín, 2014), Slovo dalo slovo (MeetFactory gallery, Prague, 2013), Morse (St. Garden / WinterSpace, New York, 2011), Czech Painting of the Zero Generation (Wannieck Gallery, Brno, 2011), Foundations and Sediments (GHMP, Municipal Library, Prague, 2011), After Velvet (GHMP Dům U Zlatého prstenu, Prague, 2009) , Prague Biennale 4 (Prague, 2009), CZ-SK Contemporary Young Painting (Wannieck Gallery, Brno, 2008), Resetting/ Other paths of materiality (GHMP, Municipal Library, Prague, 2007-08), Acne (Rudolfinum Gallery, Prague, 2006), Intercity: Berlin – Prague 01/ Malerei (Haus am Waldse gallery, Berlin, 2005).
Graphic design of the exhibition and book: Martin Odehnal
