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Luděk Rathouský The Mirror of Eternal Abandonment
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Luděk Rathouský: The Mirror of Eternal Abandonment Spring 1665. During the painting session, Amos asks Rembrandt how does his deepest memory look like. Thinking, he tries to go through to this illusion via ageing, disillusionment, hopelessness, abandonment and loss.
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Content introduction residence work opening about Luxfer Open Space and ruimteCAESUR colophon
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ruimteCAESUUR Lange Noordstraat 67 | 4331 CC NL-Middelburg www.caesuur.nu | caesuur@zeelandnet.nl 5
The ideological essence of the installation, created on the site during the fortnightly residence, is the situation that may have taken place during 1665 in Amsterdam. Here the emigrant Jan Amos Comenius met the old and abandoned, impoverished Rembrandt van Rijn. The idea of such a situation is the driving emotion, with which Rathouský created a monumental painting and a subsequent installation lit by candles. As part of the local collaboration, he turned to friends around ruimteCAESUUR with a request: to send him their first supposed memory. From these sources, Luděk Rathouský created a series of drawings on handmade paper, where fragments of respondents' memories are ephemerally present. Aging, disillusionment, hopelessness, abandonment, home loss. The emigration of intellectuals from Central and Eastern Europe is a phenomenon that has lasted for over three centuries and the possibility that it will recur is still relevant. "My sense of a possible conflict in eastern Ukraine is linked to the anxiety of a possible invasion by Putin's Russia, which may try to disrupt Europe and launch a resatelliteization of (not only) my country, “the author wrote in his annotation to the future residence in Middelburg at the end of February. His fears soon came true. 6
Luděk Rathouský (* 1975) is a Czech artist based in Prague and Brno. In addition to his author’s artwork, he is also a founding member of the significant art group Rafani, which intervenes in many artistic genres. They won an award at the Jihlava Documentary Film Festival for their film debut 31 Ends 31 Beginnings. In Brno, he works mainly as a professor and head of the painting studio at the Faculty of Fine Arts. He is also a curator, a husband and a happy father, as he likes to add. Since 2010, Rathouský has been focusing on finding of a specific painting language, based on panel painting of the 13th and 14th centuries. He developed the technique of false punching, where the metal layer is applied using ordinary room rollers and sheet metal. Controlled coincidence, metallized structures and careful filling of gaps with pastel or high-layer paint create an expressive impression. However, it is a very timeconsuming process referring to the meditative aspects of the medieval approach to matter. It is the roller pattern that has been present in Rathouse's painting for two decades that has become, so to speak, his distinguishing feature. However, it does not use wall decorative ornaments as a sign but mainly as a narrative element, 7 where the decorative motif functions not only as a visual filling of the surface, but also as a structural expression of hidden content, an ornamental narrative abbreviation that seems to replace the
ments as a sign but mainly as a narrative element, where the decorative motif functions not only as a visual filling of the surface, but also as a structural expression of hidden content, an ornamental narrative abbreviation that seems to replace the absence of a living element. Simple motifs, transferred from their interior role, acquire aesthetic independence and distinc-tive meanings. Luděk Rathouský plays a sneaky Blind man’s buff with a viewer, where meaning becomes ornament and ornament becomes meaning.
Click here for a time-laps of creating the work February-Marcrch 2022 | Luděk Rathouský 8
residence | april 24 - may 7 2022 9
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work from June 24 . . . 19
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opening | may 7 2022 29
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about Luxfer | ruimteCAESUUR | colofon 35
Luxfer Open Space - Contemporary art space functions as an umbrella platform of the Luxfer Gallery, the Luxfer Open Space Academy (LOSA!), Luxfer Open Space Residency, Workshops and Symposias for the professional and general public, including outside home gallery. Luxfer is a completely non-profit orginasation to decentralize art scene and disseminate current art in the region. This project helps to dispel the obscurity and inaccessibility and the resulting distrust in contemporary art. Riegrova 347, Česká Skalice, Czech Republic. galerieluxfer@gmail.com
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Since 1995, exhibitions of contemporary art have been made in CAESUUR, from 1999 on at Lange Noordstraat 67 in Middelburg. Visual arts, in relation with contemporary art discourse, are always the guiding principle for an exhibition, but a historical and social perspective also determine our choices. ruimteCAESUUR stands for the autonomy of art and puts the artist’s oeuvre at the center of organizing its (solo) exhibitions. Young, novice and “arrived” artists are offered a platform to present their work in a non-commercial environment. Meeting and learning from each other play an important role within our annual. ruimteCAESUUR is a private initiative, without any profit motive, with Willy van Houtum and visual artist Hans Overvliet as its core. teamCAESUUR is completed by the artists Jorieke Rottier and Giel Louws. The exhibitions in 2022 will be organized as much as possible in cooperation with art initiatives from other countries: Lípa Art Collection and Luxfer Open Space, both from the Czech Republic, platvvorm from Belgium, Studio44 from Sweden, etc. Exchange with Dutch artists ensures reciprocity in this processes. The unique composition of this team crosses borders of art practices, gender, and generations. 37
Exhibition Luděk Rathouský | Prague | Czeck Republic Texts Luděk Rathouský | Hans Over vliet Photos Willy van Houtum | Hans Overvliet | Roman Rejholt catalogue Hans Overvliet teamCAESUUR Jorieke Rottier | Willy van Houtum Giel Louws | Hans Overvliet thanks to Luxfer Open Space | Czech Republic the happy share holders & ditto friends of CAESUUR the municipality of Middelburg the province of Zeeland Kattendijke / Drucker Foundation Family Fund Hurgronje Frits Lensvelt Foundation
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Lange Noordstraat 67, 4331 CC Middelburg caesuur@zeelandnet.nl www.caesuur.nu www.caesuur-posethequestion.nl K.v.K. Middelburg 411 143 92 IBAN NL65 RBRB 0787 6747 53 39
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