Zbyněk Baladrán

He is an important personality of his generation. In 2001 he founded the Display Gallery and has several times been among the finalists for the Jindřich Chalupecký Award. In 2004 he was nominated as the Czech Republic’s representative to Manifest.

He already gained notice during his studies at the Prague School of Art (Akademie výtvarných umění), when he put together the work, Kaktusy (1999). Kaktusy (Cactuses) is made up of toilet brushes, plastic labels, pipes and various randomly-found objects that Baladrán installed into a wood frame, such as those often seen in the windows of cactus-growing enthusiasts. He continued to work with cheap materials and he poked fun at his own approach to a degree in the work, Hobby (2001). This work consists of a panel on wooden sawhorses with primitively placed letters spelling HOBBY. The piece is part of series of works, for which there is an undeniable influence from the non-spectacular art of Jiří Kovanda.

Baladrán developed this approach by creating detailed instructions for the works‘ production. Following sets of instructions similar to those used by IKEA, he first shows what all is needed to build the work of art and then provides step-by-step guidance. The result is a simple wooden construction such as Screen <3> (2001), which is as seldom used as it is beautiful. The works’ impracticality and abstractness stand in direct contrast to their precise, specific instructions: guides that would satisfy the most demanding of do-it-yourselfers.

Since 2002 Baladrán has expressed himself mainly through video. Since his first attempts such as Limita (2002), Technical Compression (2002) or Shower (2002) he quickly moved on to create short films made up of film archive materials. He began to collect old film reels and to play with the re-interpretation using the point of view of today’s media-focused society. He created complicated video installations such as Projection (2003). These works allow the viewer to change channels from one to another and watch the videos in different constellations.

Since 2004 written commentaries have come to play an increasingly larger role in the author’s films. The author has visibly edited the texts and so parts of them remain hidden from the viewer. Baladrán thus plays with the mechanisms of our memory and visual history. In the films Working Process (2004) and 1985 (2005) he more or less didactically shows off his working method for film materials, many of which at the time he gathered from both professional archives as well as from amateurs.

In recent years he is increasingly interested in the modern era and he addresses, for example, the architectural icons of the avant-garde in his films, i.e. Koldom 156,71m2 (1:50 Model - 2006) or Tower of Constructivism (2006). Baladrán consciously works with the fact that art today is no longer the creation of perfect artefacts, but rather reflection on our relationship to reality. It transfers the sense of art and provides impulses for its continuous re-definition.

Monument transformace, společný projekt s Vítem Havránkem:

2010

Monument to Transfomation invited as part of "Watchmen, Liars, Dreamers (Erudition concrete 3)", FRAC Ile-de-France Le Plateau, Paris

Monument to Transformation, Montehernoso, Vitoria

Monument to Transformation, GMK, Zagreb

2009

Monument to Transformation, CIV, Bucharest

Monument to Transformation, Municipal library, City Gallery, Prague

2008

Installation model, fragment # 7, Communism Never Happened / Vocabulary, tranzit, Bratislava

Installation model, fragment # 6, Labour Day, Labor, Budapest

2007

Installation model, fragment # 5, Prague Biennale 3, Prague

2007-2009

Permanent installation of Monument to Transformation“, tranzitdisplay, Prague

2010

Atlas of Transformation, Prague, EN

Emil Filla, archiv umělce, GASK, CZ

trouble, paris, FR

Sešity pro umění, teorii a příbuzné zóny, 6-7, magazine, interview, CZ

Comrades of time, catalogue, Pavilion, Bucharest, EN

2009

Monument transformace interview, Profil 3-4 CZ/SK

Atlas Transformace, Praha, CZ

The End Magazine, spring summer, Milano, IT, EN

Labyrint revue, 23-24, magazine, interview, text, documentation, CZ

2008

Stavba, 5/2008, magazine, interview, CZ

Fussion/Confussion, catalogue, Museum Folkwang, Essen, DE

2007

Flash Art, Czechoslowakia, interview, CZ

Table, Monument to transformation, Fragment #3, catalogue, Moravian Gallery Brno, CZ

Prag Biennal, catalogue, Prague, CZ

Lindaurová, Lenka: Umění - návod k použití: Zbyněk Baladrán a jeho Slovník, A2 kulturní týdeník, 18/ 2007, s. 10

2006

Archeology of today?, catalogue, D. Zefkili, KAG, Prishtina, Kosova

Cinepur 44, interview, Martin Mareček, Praha, CZ

2005

Fotograf 6/05, Zbyněk Baladrán, Mariana Serrano, Praha, CZ

The Need to Document, / Ruins, Archaeology and the Gap between Images, Muttenz, CH

Contemporary, 71, Moving Images at the Edge of the Real, Katerina Gregos, GB

2004

Manifesta 5, ...with all due intent, catalogue, M. Gioni, Barcelona, ES

Daemon, Ritorno al futuro, A. Grulli, Bologna, IT

Metropolis M, Interview, I. Commandeur, Utrecht, NL

Umělec, 3, Theory, praxis, exposition, D. Kulhánek, Praha, CZ