Markéta Kinterová

Markéta Kinterová’s main role is of an observer. She is engaged primarily in conceptual photography often overlapping to public space. In photography, she is intuitively enticed by chance; she is not interested in the manipulation of digital image but rather in the daily trivial reality – real life that she sees. An important element of her work is site-specific projects where she actively intervenes in a specific space. She has been on several scholarships abroad (USA 2002 and Germany 2004) and on residential stays (Austria 2006 and Mexico 2008). While studying photography headed by Pavel Baněk at the Faculty of Art and Design in Ústí nad Labem, she was nominated for the EXIT award for her cycle Darkside (2005). With this series of photographs that is interlinked with the depiction of various forms of violence and evil intermediated through the media, she captivated the jury and obtained first place. These photos, where it is not clear whether they are shots from the evening news, industrial camera or film, evoke uncertainty and they are perturbing due the inability to decipher whether they are real or fiction.

The Project Samizdat (2006) was an active and Do It Yourself intervention in public space. The artist made, at her own expense, several copies of a magazine that she subsequently left for the random reader on the shelves of public libraries, clubs and coffee shops. She used a similar principle with Silvia Milkova in their collection of Flyers (2006), which they distributed during their residential stay in Graz. She also worked with flyers in her project The Cause of Extinction (2009), which originated during her residential stay in Moscow as a reaction to the smog and polluted environment. She appealed to a similar problem in Mexico with her collection 360° (2009). The collection Without Title (balloons) (2009) also originated in Mexico. These photographs of church ceilings with blown up carnival balloons stuck in them, reflect the different culture, customs and traditions. The contrast between the world of faith and the world of entertainment evokes, in our environment, conflict and the image is somehow disturbing.

A distinct element that Markéta focuses on is working with texts and placing them in public space. For example, in her series Without Title (Signs) (2008), she concentrates on anonymous signs on walls, doors, buildings or trees, bearing various messages and news. She views them as a certain way of communicating; she is interested in the selfless and active co-creation of space that can outrage, entertain or even inspire someone. She also used text in public space in her installation Objectin the Subway (2008), specifically in the area of the subway station Můstek in Prague. Using a line from Nicolas Bourriaud’s text she marked the way from the subway station to the Gallery of Václav Špála. A passage from the essay Postproduction commented the relationship of contemporary art and the gallery as a space for art. Or in the project for the Notebook of Jan Horák, she created a crossword puzzle based on the knowledge of Czech art context, or she rewrote passages from the discussions of visitors of the opening in the Experimental Space ROXY/NoD(Crossword and Wiretap, 2008).

In the still opened collection II (2008-2011) Markéta Kinterová records moments that capture pairs of people, animals or things in the same or similar positions or situations. Mutual analogies are also present in the project Billboard, Bucharest (2006) when she presented, on a billboard, photographs of two streets from various cities that are linked by admirable similarities. In the collection Situations (2008) she uses the filming procedure and documents a situation taking place at the same time on two balconies above each other. Hydroproject (2011) depicts a routine ritual of a project institution employee who spends her breaks by smoking.

 The focus of the artist’s most recent work is returning to a certain localities. She takes her photographs back to the place of their origin, like for example in the work Two Photos (2011). She transferred two photographs of a coloured spot of unknown origin on the facade of a building to a poster, which she put up in the neighbourhood of the marked building. She worked in a similar way with the series of Signs – she left a wooden stand with photographs of the given place near them and left them there for the passersby to take.

In her photographs, Markéta Kinterová records reality. Whether it is common, daily and routine matters and situations, or unique and unrepeatable moments influenced by chance and maintained thanks to a timely reaction. It is exactly randomness, strangeness and capturing of surrounding events that are the key topics of her work.

Birgus, V. Glocal girls: Young Czech and Slovak women photographers, katalog, Praguebiennale2

Čechlovská, M. Futura nabízí politické umění, Hospodářské noviny, 7. 3. 2006

Havelková, J., Stopy a záznamy, katalog Funkeho Kolín, 2009, s. 42

Haškovcová, M. Podoby moci, zla a teroru, Ateliér n. 7, 2006, s. 1

Serranová, M. Darkside, Fotograf #6, 2005, s. 94–95

Tučková, K.: Portfolio – Markéta Kinterová, Art & Antiques, prosinec 2009, s. 28-29

Váchová, L. Funkeho Kolín, Ateliér n. 22, 2009, s. 16

Záhoranský, D. Markéta Kinterová, Sešit, 2007, s. 2

Projekt Samizdat, Entrance Gallery, tisková zpráva: www.karlinstudios.cz/tiskovky/kinterova.htm

Projekt Samizdat, rozhlasový rozhovor: www.rozhlas.cz/mozaika/vytvarne/_zprava/352545

Darkside: www.futuraproject.cz/cz/exhibitions/darkside/index.htm