18 x 24 cm
Untitled (1992) responds to the same principles of an economy of means as the artist’s actions and installations: three empty cardboard boxes which have contained photographic film are piled one on top of the other. Nevertheless there is a harmony in the assembly of forms, writing, colors, proportions; an aesthetic construction is carried by this contemporary still life. This work charts the passing of time: the cardboard yellows, the film becomes obsolete in the digital age. In a meta-artistic dimension, this sculpture could be a manifesto for Kovanda’s work. His actions and installations have a particular link to the photographic medium: they can only exist for the contemporary spectator and as an artwork, through the records and documentation. The sculpture seems to contain potential artworks in gestation in the bottom of the box, like a mysterious photographic chamber, invisible to the eye.
Jiri Kovanda was born in 1953 in Prague, Czech Republic. He lives and works in Prague.
Untitled (rolled up) , is an abstract portrait of Owen Monk, the artist’s father and features an aluminum ring of 56.6 cm in diameter measuring 1.77 cm in circumference, the size of his father...
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Kovanda’s street interventions are always documented according to the same format as the actions: a piece of A4 paper, a typewritten text giving a precise location and date, and a photograph...
This ephemeral installation by Jirí Kovanda, documented in the same way as his performances with a photograph and a text, belongs to a body of works that took place in his apartment/studio...
Kovanda’s ‘discreet’ actions (leaving a discussion in a rush, bumping into passers-by in the street, making a pile of rubbish and scattering it, looking at the sun until tears come…) are always documented according to the same format: a piece of A4 paper, a concise typewritten text, and sometimes a photograph taken by someone else...
The photographer speaks with his brother, the journalist Jake Halpern, about growing up in a city of surreal sights and memorable characters....