Miroslav Hašek

Miroslav Hašek graduated from the Digital Media Studio led by Michaela Thelenová at the Faculty of Art and Design and the Department of Educational Studies of the Faculty of Education of the University of Jan Evangelista. In 2011 he won the student EXIT Prize. His work sensitively reflects on questions of contemporary visual art. He attempts to find a universal truth but is also aware of the impossibility of utopian nature of the entire process. He mixes video art, photography, installations, objects and drawings. He is not afraid to experiment with form, though the first impulse in his work is always superior to form. He looks for the most appropriate medium for his content that conveys the essence of the work to the viewer. Within the context of his experiments Hašek perceives humour, banality, utopia and paradox. The idea itself he perceives as beautiful. Within the framework of participation he investigates questions of authorship. He involves the lay audience in the creative process and works with amateur artist while remaining in the background as the main initiator. He regards the beauty of a work from a different angle than the traditionally aesthetic and formally perfect. In Untitled of 2012, as part of his intervention in public space in the district of Předlice, Ústí nad Labem, he asked prostitutes to draw their last client for him for money. The output included a documentary video and drawings. The work Portrait of the Artist from 2014 was a site-specific project organised in the environs of the Klamovka Gazebo with the participation of the local nursery, whose children Hašek asked to draw him in front of the gazebo. The work deals with the relationships artist-work, active view-collaborator, and passive viewer-gallery visitor.

In his video art Hašek’s interest is in the banality of everyday reality, in which certain activities can be understood within the context of their repetition as ritual. The video Homeperformance from 2011 looks at ordinary activities such as overcoming obstacles, creating needless restrictions, and undressing. The artist sought inspiration in his childhood and peels away layers of personal recollection. He did the same in Radzovice (2014), in which he examined his family history. He paid a visit to relatives in Sovakia that he had never met, though he had heard them referred to all through childhood and had pictured them in his imagination.

Hašek’s video art is highly polished and results in a perfect mage. He has a master of editing, audio, casting and scenery (e.g. Mother/Daughter of 2015). He has also made a name for himself on the Czech art scene. His style features a powerful narrative force by which he demonstrates everyday tasks in a different form to the way we perceive them in real life. He elevates the banal into a gallery environment in a unique way. He creates stories on the boundary of fiction and reality and this ambiguity assists him achieve the authentic experience that the viewer counts on in advance. Infinity is a symbol for the opening up of space for a wide range of interpretations and is the target principle that illustrates the artist’s interest in narrative methods. Hašek’s work operates on the edge of humour and the essence of life. His videos capture the richness of visual form, audio and banal, sometimes ridiculous situations that, however, reveal existential questions when examined in more detail. Infinity demonstrates the complexity of understanding universal truth that he is attempting to find. The endeavour to unpick the complexity of relationships and to understand the surrounding world is highly significant in Hašek’s intermedia oeuvre.

Romana Veselá: Dej pět! Je to cool, Artalk 5.3.2013: http://artalk.cz/2013/03/05/dej-pet-je-to-cool/ New York uvidí práce ústeckých studentů, MF Dnes (Severní Čechy) 18.1.2012 Rozhovor s Jiřím Ptáčkem: Jednou bude děkanem, Artalk 14.3.2012: http://artalk.cz/2012/03/14/jednou-bude-dekanem/ Štepánka Bieleszová: Obraz, ve kterém žijeme, A2 – 24/2011 Reportáže: Nulla Dies Sine Linea: Postkonceptulní přesahy v české kresbě, GEF, Ústí nad Labem, 2014: http://artycok.tv/lang/cs-cz/25154/nulla-dies-sine-linea