Jana Kalinová

Jana Kalinová belongs to the first important generation of artists who graduated from the Brno Faculty of Fine Art founded shortly after the revolution. Her work developed against the background of the objectives of the conceptual school of Peter Rónai and Marian Palla. It was within this environment that Jana Kalinová found a certain mental space which converged with her orientation and supported her development.

From the very start Jana Kalinová’s work was dominated by an attempt to capture the paradox and absurdity of human life. It is also characterised by the different media used – object, installation, photography and sometimes paintings. As well as her artistic work Kalinová is also a curator. She founded and ran the Gallery Eskort, which after 2000 was long the live centre of young Brno culture.

Her important works include the installation “Tent”, which she exhibited in 2000 at the Nest of Games exhibition at the Rudolfinum. This was an interactive object which, whenever a viewer approached wanting to see more closely, began to unravel.

Another large object entitled “The Colours of Our Cave” is again inspired by human creativity, which can be sometimes accompanied by an element of embarrassment. On the one hand the work makes reference to the childish fondness for pyromania and on the other the atmosphere of school trips, which often head for the popular Moravian Krast. It was here that the author’s ability to lend her ideas, flirting with the absurd, a large-scale creative dimension, was developed to the full.

Another installation entitled “If I Don’t Know, Then I Ask, I Would Ask, But I Don’t know Who”, exhibited at the Home Gallery in 2003, had a similar effect. The monumental creative form of an interactive object was here contrasted with the theme of rotation, which was intended to symbolise the human ability to step over the threshold of their own restrictions. Man is ensnared in a trap and constantly moving – just like a hamster on a treadmill.

The theme of paradox appears in other works by Jana Kalinová, for instance in the photographs entitled “Sado Hygiene”, “Guernica” and “Remote Control”, as well as in paintings created around 2003. In the picture “Sado Hygiene” the artist examined trivial, everyday activities, e.g. treading on the toilet paper roll, with the aim of evoking a gesture deep-seated in Christian iconography symbolising the victory of good over evil.

At present Jana Kalinová is mainly involved in video pieces and work with text. She also finds important inspiration in the communication mechanisms in operation on the internet.

Curatorial activities:

2004

Karaoke je slovní fotbal na všechny slabiky, OGV, Jihlava

2003

Za jiných okolností by to mohla být pravda, DUMB, Dům pánů z Kunštátu, Brno

2002

Galerie Eskort, Langenloise, Rakousko