Portfolio - Galerie Jocelyn Wolff

ZBYNEK BALADRAN
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff
Updated: May 2016
ZBYNEK BALADRAN
Born in Prague (Czechoslovakia ) in 1973
Lives and works in Prague.
www.tranzitdisplay.cz
www.monumenttotransformation.org
BIOGRAPHY
Zbyněk Baladrán is an author, visual artist and curator. He studied art history at the Charles University Philosophical Faculty in Prague from 1992-1996, and from 1997-2003 at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of visual communication. He is one of the co-founders and a curator of Galerie display, which was established in Prague in 2001, and
in 2007 merged with tranzit.cz into tranzitdisplay, where he continues to oversee the exhibition program. He is also the
co-curator, with Vít Havranek, of the project and exhibitions Monument to Transformation, a 3-year research project on
social transformation that was presented in 2009 at the Prague City Gallery, and which traveled to several other locations in Europe later this year. Baladrán was also a part of the team of curators (tranzit.org) for Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain
in 2010. His artworks can be characterized as the search for links between the past and its construction in relation to
the prevailing epistemological patterns. His works are represented in various international private and public collections.
AWARDS & GRANTS
2013 Audi Awards for New Positions, Art Cologne
2008
artist in residence, Zacheta, Warsaw
2007
artist in residence, PROGR, Bern
2006
artist in residence, MQ, Vienna
2004
developmental grant of tranzit
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff
SOLO EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
2014
Dead Reckoning, CAC Synagogue de Delme, Delme, France
Zbyněk Baladrán, The Measures Taken, cur. by Emily Barsi, Kunstraum München, Munich, Germany
Audi Awards for New Positions, Art Cologne, Zbyněk Baladrán, -map-fire-word-end-, Artothek, Raum für junge Kunst, Cologne, Germany
2013
Difficulties, DADS, Liberec, Czech Republic
The Microscope and the Periscope of time, Fotograf gallery, Praha, Czech Republic
Always the Same Place, a joint project with Petra Feriancova, curated by Marek Pokorny, Pavilion of the Czech and Slovak Republics, 55th Venice Biennale,Venice, Italy
Preliminary report, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, France
2012
Without Any Assumptions, Gandy gallery, Bratislava, Slokavia
2011
The Nervous System, along with Jiří Kovanda, Milano Kunstverein, Milano, Italy
What I do not see, tranzit workshops, Bratislava, Slovakia
2009
Cognitive maps, Hunt Kastner Artworks, Praha, Czech Republic
2008
Crunch time, Castillo/Coralles, Paris, France
What History do they represent?, along with Vangelis Vlahos, Blow de la Barra, London, UK
Instruments of uncertainty, House of Art, Č.Budějovice, Czech Republic
Glossary, Secession Vitrine, Wien, Austia
2007
Vocabulary, Old City Hall Gallery, Praha, Czech Republic
Table, M.toT. Fragment #3, Moravian Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic
2004
zazděný vchod, Moravian Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic
theory/praxis/exposition, DPzK, Brno, Czech Republic
2002
Warianta C, with Erik Binder, Open gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia
Target Group, performance with Tomas Svoboda, part of presentation of Umelec, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
2001
8, Galerie Eskort, Brno, Czech Republic
10, Galerie Eingang, Ostrava, Czech Republic
019, Galerie Jeleni,Praha, Czech Republic
2000
Diorama, BJ Case, Komunardu Street, Praha, Czech Republic
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
2016
MUSEUM (SCIENCE) FICTIONS, Centre Pompidou/Espace Prospectif, Paris, France
L’Economie de la tension, Le Parc Saint Léger, Centre d’art contemporain, Pougues-les-Eaux, France
The promise of total automation, Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier, Wien, Austria
2015
Ocean of Images, New Photography 2015, MoMA, New-York, USA
A model of the world. Film Program curated by Simone Menegoi Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, France
Le fil et les traces. Film program curated by Eline Grignard, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, France
2014-2015
Selective memory: Artists in archive, The Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland
Curatorial project: who in my place, Plato, Ostrava, Czech Republic
Comet/Kometa, FUTURA, Prague, Czech Republic
2014
Report on the Construction of the Spaceship Module, New Museum, New York , USA
Artothek Cologne, Germany
2013
Memories of the Future II, Dům umění, Brno, Czech Republic
Film as sculpture, Wiels Contemporary Art Center, Brussels, Belgium
Nouvelles impressions de Raymond Roussel, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
As the World Turns All Things Turn Away, HuntKastner Artworks, Praha, Czech Republic
2012 The 7th Seoul International Media Art Bienniale, Seoul, South Korea
Les Ateliers Biennale D’Art Contemporain de Rennes, Rennes, France
The 2nd Ural Industrial Biennial, Ekateringburg, Russia
Conjuring for Beginners, project arts centre, Dublin, Ireland
Cartographies, La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain
Economy Picasso, Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Spain
Homo Mathematicus, NTK, Praha, Czech Republic
Aire de Lyon, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires, Argentina
The Islands of Resistance, National Gallery, Praha, Czech Republic
Pokus-omyl-oprava, City Surfer, Praha, Czech Republic
How to look at everything, The Common Guild, Glasgow, UK
From the closed world to the infinite universe, Le Qartier, Quimper, France
State of Affairs, AMT Project, Bratislava, Slovakia
2011 Unchronie, Galerie u Bílého jednorožce, Klatovy, Czech Republic
a terrible beauty is born, 11e Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France
Les amis de mes amis sont mes amis, hommage a Ján Mančuška, Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, France
Gallery by Night, Studio Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
Mutující médium, Rudolfinum, Prague, Czech Republic
2010 No Ifs, no buts, Depo, Istambul, Turkey
U dUbU tU bUdU, Školská 28, Praha, Czech Republic
Collected reflections, Entrance, Praha, Czech Republic
Raising Dust - Encounters in Relational Geography, Calvert 22, London, UK
Step by step, Gandy Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia
Uberblendungen, Shedhalle, Zurich, Germany
Velkoměstská periferie, KGVU, Zlín, Czech Republic
Why do we resist?, Pori Taidemuseo / Pori Art Museum, Pori, Finland
Watchmen, Liars, Dreamers (Erudition concrete 3), FRAC Ile-de-France Le Plateau, Paris, France
Epilogue 1, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, Spain
Akce Zet, Emil Filla Gallery, Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic
Dust, asches and residua, Open Space, Wien, Austria
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff
EGO, Langhanz Gallery, Praha, Czech Republic
Formate der Transformation 89-09, Museum auf Abruf, Wien, Austria
Comrades of time, Pavilion Unicredit, Bucharest, Romania
The Romance of my Young Days, the Future of my Nostalgia, Central Slovakian Gallery, Banska Bystrica
2009 Formáty transformace, Dům umění, Brno, Czech Republic
The Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, The Situation, Moscow, Russia
Bertha von Suttner Revisited, Harmannsdorf, Austria
Any Instant Whatever, Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow, Poland
7a bienal do mercosul, Mercosul
Expanded City, 13th Media Art Biennale, Wroclaw, Poland
Farimani at Starr Space, Starr Space, New York, USA
Le Troisième Lieu / Der Dritte Ort / The Third Place, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, Austria
Blind Spots, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Vienna, Austria
2008 Atomized, De Veemvloer, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Finalists of J. Chalupecký Award, DU Brno, Czech Republic
Gyumri Biennial, Gyumri
Try again, fail again, fail better, Műcsarnok, Budapest, Hungary
Rendezvous nowhere, Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz
The Provocation of the Real, National Center for the Arts, Mexico, Mexico
Where the East ends, Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Germany
Triennial of young Artists, City gallery, Praha, Czech Republic
Be a Happy Worker: Work-to-Rule, G-MK, Zagreb, Croatia
Another City, Zacheta, Warszawa, Poland
The Archive, Prometeo gallery, Milano, Italy
Same Democracy, Neon>Campobase, Bologna, Italy
videoart.cz, projectSPACE, Bratislava, Slovakia
Fussion Confussion, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
2007
PASSAGES,PASSAGEN,PASAZE,Gandy Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia
October, Exit, Memory and Desire, Artra gallery, Milano, Italy
Finalists of J. Chalupecký Award, Roxy, Praha, Czech Republic
Why do you Resist?, Forum Stadtpark, Graz, Austria
Simple Living, Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Romania
Stalking With Stories, Apexart, New York, USA
Sklerotische Nachtbar/i/n, 2 Gallery, Schloss Wolkersdorf, Austria
invisible things, trafo gallery, Budapest, Hungary
Synonyma, MtT 1989-1968-2009, Index, Stockholm, Sweden
Prague biennale 3 - der prozess, Praha, Czech Republic
Punctum, Futura, Praha, Czech Republic
2006
The Other City, screening program, Trafo, Budapest, Hungary
F/acts/igures, exhibition artwalk, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Auditorium, Stage, Backstage, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany
Pozvao sam par prijatelja da bace pogled, nova gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
Closely Observed Plans, tranzit workshops, Bratislava, Slovakia
Zbynek Baladran - Carlos Casas - Alice Guareschi, Neon>fdv, Milano, Italy
Archeology of today?, Kosova Art Gallery-Museum in Prishtina, Kosovo
Indikace, Jungmanova 21, Praha, Czech Republic
Donaumonarchie, Billboard project, Bratislava, Slovakia
Věcné stavy, Karlín Studios, Praha, Czech Republic
Vangelis Vlahos project, Els Hanappe Underground, Athens, Greece
2005
1811197604122005, Galeria Plan B, Cluj
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff
Turbulence, Museum Kampa, Praha, Czech Republic
Finalists of J. Chalupecký Award, City Gallery Prague, Czech Republic
Praguebiennale2 - definition of everyday, Praha, Czech Republic
Fifth Biennial of young Artists, City gallery Praha, Czech Republic
The Need to Document, Kunsthaus Baselland, Muttenz, Switzerland
Insiders, Futura, Praha, Czech Republic
2004
Insiders, DpK, Brno, curated by P. Morganová, Czech Republic
Finalists of J. Chalupecký Award, Brno House of Art, Brno, Czech Republic
Spacecamp, Kolowratský palác, Praha, Czech Republic
Prague and Dresden,Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Regensburg, Germany
Manifesta 5, Donostia-San Sebastián
Breakthrough, Grote Kerk, Den Haag, Netherlands
Interkosmos 2004, Raster, Warszawa, Poland
2003
Kompression, Wedding, Berlin, Germany
Paradies, with Tomas Svoboda, Bunker, Alexanderplatz, Berlin, Germany
Survey 03, Futura, Praha, Czech Republic
Ceskoslovensko, Bratislava, Slovakia
Artchitektura, GJF, Praha, Czech Republic
2002
Premiere vue, Passage de Retz, Paris, France
Uhlopricka, Galerie Eskort, Brno, Czech Republic
Wechselstube, der-ausstellunsgraum, Stuttgart, Germany
Forum of Independent Galleries, U Prstenu, City Gallery, Praha, Czech Republic
2001
Fotok, MEO, Budapest, Hungary
Prvni a posledni, Galerie V. Spaly, Praha, Czech Republic
Criss-Cross, Broumov, Czech Republic
2000
Vystava AVU, Manes, Praha, Czech Republic
Kazda kapka..., Galerie AVU, Praha, Czech Republic
1999
Vidiny Roxy, Galerie NOD, Praha, Czech Republic
Rickyho gang, klub Depo, Olomouc, Czech Republic
1998
Zelena, Galerie AVU, Praha, Czech Republic
Monument to Transformation project - Exhibitions co-curated along with Vít Havránek
2010 Monument to Transformation 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
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff
2007-2009 Permanent installation of Monument to Transformation, tranzitdisplay, Prague
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY, NOTES AND TEXTS
2015
Journal «micromonument - an invitation by Catherine Radosa», galerie Nivet-Carzon, Paris
«Zbyněk Baladrán» by Markéta Stara Condeixa, Art Forum, February 2015
2014
«Zbynek Baladran “Dead Reckoning” at Centre d’Art Contemporaine La Synagogue de Delme» by Marie Cozette, Mousse Magazine, August 2014
«Naviguer dans l’art de Zbynek Baladran» by Claire Fioletta, Le Républicain Lorrain, July 2014
2013
«Film as sculpture» by Marie de Brugerolle, Zéro Deux #67, Autumn 2013
«Zbyněk Baladrán’s “Preliminary Report”» by Elena Sorokina, Art Agenda, May 2013
2012
The Nervous System, Zbynek Baladran and Jiri Kovanda, 2012, Kunstverein Milano, EN
Des formes de vie, Les Laboratoires d´Aubervilliers, Paris, EN/FR
Subverting Disambiguities, Shedhalle, Zurich, EN/DE
2011
Terrible beauty is born, catalogue of Lyon biennial. Lyon, EN/FR
What I don’t see, tranzit workshops, Bratislava, EN/CZ
2010
No Order, Art in a Post-Fordic society, No 1, Milano, EN
Atlas of Transformation, Prague, EN
Filla, archive of the artist, EN
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
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
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff
Umělec, 3, Theory, praxis, exposition, D. Kulhánek, Praha, CZ
BOOKS & CATALOGUES
Zbyněk Baladrán, Dead Reckoning, Centre d’art contemporain - La synagogue de Delme, 2014
Texts by Zbynek Baladran, François Piron (ENG/FR)
September 5th, 2120, Prague, Zbyněk Baladrán & Vit Havranek, Steirischer Herbst, tranzit 2012
Zbyněk Baladrán - Jiri Kovanda, The Nervous System, JPR Ringier, Kunstverein Milano, tranzit, 2011
Atlas of transformation, JPR Ringier, tranzit, 2010
Zbyněk Baladrán, Slovnik, tranzit, Prague, 2008
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff
Zbyněk Baladrán
MUSEUM (SCIENCE) FICTIONS
May 18-23, 2016
CENTRE POMPIDOU / ESPACE PROSPECTIF, Paris, France
Curated by Elena Sorokina
Artists: Zbyněk Baladrán, Ekaterina Degot, Elitza Dulguerova, Vít Havránek, Myriam Lefkowitz, Jean-Claude Marcadé, Louisa Martin-Chevalier, Ioulia Podoroga, Julie Pellegrin, Nataša
Petrešin-Bachelez, Barbara Piwowarska, Pauline Simon
Aux premiers temps de la science-fiction russe, les musées sillonnent frénétiquement le
temps et l’espace: sur Mars ou au trentième siècle, ils abondent en détails foisonnants. L’imagination fertile des auteurs, empreinte d’idéologie, oscille entre cosmo-écologie, cosmo-technologie et bien d’autres modèles, jusqu’à ce que le musée, se mêlant intimement avec la vie,
disparaisse alors tout à fait. La démarche de ces musées n’est pas d’amasser des collections
pléthoriques, mais de mener des recherches, d’éduquer, d’agir en véritables laboratoires :
ils sont producteurs de futur, plutôt que taxinomistes du passé. Ce projet, à la croisée des
chemins entre le musée et la science-fiction, appréhende ces textes historiques comme un
prisme à travers lequel sont analysées les convergences actuelles entre la fiction spéculative
radicale et le discours scientifique des musées.
Durant une semaine, le projet propose un accrochage temporaire, des interventions chorégraphiques, une série de conférences-performances, des débats avec des artistes et des commissaires d’expositions, de la musique et des lectures de textes SF.
Ekaterina Degot évoquera la prodigieuse «magie de la recherche» et reviendra sur l’édition
2013 de la Bergen Assembly (co-organisée avec David Riff), construite autour du roman SF
soviétique emblématique Le lundi commence le samedi. Vít Havránek et Zbyněk Baladrán
dévoileront la façon dont ils ont détourné le vaisseau Ikarie XB-1, du film SF tchèque éponyme, pour l’élaboration de leur exposition organisée au New Museum à New-York en 2014.
Julie Pellegrin présentera ses reflections sur l’exposition comme machine à explorer le temps.
Barbara Piwowarska proposera une «apostille» expliquant comment Oskar Hansen n’a jamais
construit son musée à Skopje, et a ainsi inspiré une fiction artistique.
Le fonctionnement muséal classique «présentation et accrochage» est ici remis en cause,
et le projet révèle et introduit des usages nouveaux : les galeries du Centre Pompidou deviennent ainsi un espace de travail pour Pauline Simon et Myriam Lefkowitz. Pauline Simon
expérimente ici sa dernière chorégraphie au milieu des collections permanentes du musée,
en composant «les paysages du futur» avec les corps de ses danseurs. Quant à Myriam Lefkowitz, elle décline sa pratique de «l’incorporation» en une version associant ici le toucher et
le son, à partir d’une sélection de tableaux de Pavel Filonov (1883-1941).
Le projet accorde une place toute particulière à une conférence revenant sur une page de
l’histoire du Centre Pompidou: l’exposition Pavel Filonov (1990). C’était la première fois
qu’une exposition personnelle des œuvres de cet artiste majeur du courant «organiciste» de
l’avant-garde russe était organisée à l’étranger. Elle avait été conçue autour de l’idée de la
«découverte» d’un génie inconnu, de cette personnalité «hors-canon» qui avait développé sa
propre vision du modernisme. Nous évoquerons les retombées presque fictives qu’a connues
cette exposition, mais aussi la vision qu’avait Filonov du musée, entre science et métaphysique.
Exhibition view: Selective memory, Artists in the archive at Lewis Glucksman Gallery,
University College Cork, Irland, 2014-2015
Exhibition view: Selective memory, Artists in the archive at Lewis Glucksman Gallery,
University College Cork, Irland, 2014-2015
Zbyněk Baladrán
Selective memory
Artists in the archive
November 21, 2014 - March 15, 2015
Lewis Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork, Irland
Curated by Chris Clarke and Orla Murphy
Artists: Zbyněk Baladrán, Paulien Barbas, David Raymond Conroy, Dani Gal, Ruth
Maclennan, Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan, Lucy McKenzie, Marge Monko,
Gavin Murphy, Alan Phelan, Anne Ramsden, Jasper Rigole, Valerie Snobeck,
Sean Snyder, Miek Zwamborn
The archive preserves the past, its remnants and records, within a repository of human
knowledge. However, it also offers a space for critical engagement and creative invention, for
challenging the archive’s supposed objectivity with unorthodox histories, subversive interpretations and speculative ideas. Drawing on photographs, documents, film footage and texts,
artists have used the archive to create new works from existing materials, to unsettle established readings of the past and to imagine alternative narratives. Selective Memory: Artists
in the archive explores the ways in which Irish and international artists continually return to
the archive, in order to imbue it with a new sense of subjectivity and individuality. The specific materials associated with the archive are revealed in the work of several artists. Miek
Zwamborn’s sculptural installation is inspired by her research into a 19th century herbarium
or plant album found in the archives in which she works. Speculating upon the owner’s inscribed dedication to an apparent lover, the artist re-traces the relationship between these two
individuals through objects and texts displayed in horizontal drawers and trays. This process
of drawing connections between disparate images and materials also informs Lucy McKenzie’s Quodlibet series, a term referring to topics of theological or philosophical debate. While
resembling billboards pinned with photographs, leaflets and writings around given subjects,
these trompe l’oeil oil paintings play with the tension between the temporary, tangential
relationship and the permanence of her chosen medium. The speculative associations that
McKenzie forges from diverse source materials are forever fixed in her precisely detailed and
illusionistic compositions (...)
The re-editing of found footage into new narratives is represented in video works by Zbyněk
Baladrán and Marge Monko. In Baladrán’s piece Working Process, he overlays grainy film
sequences from Soviet Czechoslovakia with segments of text, while Monko’s work sets still
photographs of Estonian factory workers to an excerpt from a play by the Austrian Nobel Prize
winner Elfriede Jelinek.
Exhibition view: Selective memory, Artists in the archive at Lewis Glucksman Gallery,
University College Cork, Irland, 2014-2015
Exhibition view: Selective memory, Artists in the archive at Lewis Glucksman Gallery,
University College Cork, Irland, 2014-2015
Zbyněk Baladrán
The Measures Taken
March 05 - 30 2014
Kunstraum München, Germany
in cooperation with the Czech Center Munich
curated by Emily Barsi
Exhibition view, Zbyněk Baladrán,The Measures Taken Kunstraum München, Germany, 2014
Exhibition view, Zbyněk Baladrán,The Measures Taken Kunstraum München, Germany, 2014
Exhibition view, Zbyněk Baladrán,The Measures Taken Kunstraum München, Germany, 2014
Exhibition view, Zbyněk Baladrán,The Measures Taken Kunstraum München, Germany, 2014
Exhibition view, Zbyněk Baladrán,The Measures Taken Kunstraum München, Germany, 2014
Exhibition view, Zbyněk Baladrán,The Measures Taken Kunstraum München, Germany, 2014
Zbyněk Baladrán
DEAD RECKONING
July 10, 2014 - September 21, 2014
Centre d’art contemporain La Synagogue de Delme, France
A travers films, diagrammes, dessins ou textes, Zbynek Baladran propose divers systèmes de
représentation du savoir et de la connaissance. S’il utilise ces formes pour traduire concepts
et idées, c’est aussi une manière de les rendre plus directement accessibles à nos sens et de
mêler des questions philosophiques à des modes de transmissions d’ordre poétique et visuel.
L’oeuvre qui ouvre l’exposition consiste en une sculpture serpentine faite de papiers découpés, et se déploie dans l’espace à hauteur de regard. Zbynek Baladran fait de nous des lecteurs actifs, car il faut se déplacer, tordre le cou, avancer ou reculer, pour lire et percer le
sens des mots imprimés sur les rubans. Comme un chemin de pensée que l’artiste voudrait
rendre palpable, l’installation relève du diagramme mental, cartographie labyrinthique, faite
de superpositions et de collages dans lesquels le discours est volontairement éclaté, fragmentaire et troué.
Nombres des oeuvres de Zbynek Baladran (né à Prague en 1973) sont traversées par les
doutes et les résistances intérieures expérimentées par une génération ayant traversé les
bouleversements historiques, politiques et sociaux de l’après 89, dans les pays de l’ex bloc
soviétique. Le sentiment d’inadéquation et de décalage provoqué par la liberté toute paradoxale, offerte par un monde dit démocratique, a fini par produire ce que l’artiste appelle des
« spasmes mentaux ». Plus que du désenchantement, c’est une forme de désarroi profond
qui s’est installé dans le quotidien de cette génération, oscillant entre volonté d’adaptation à
un nouvel environnement libéral et individualiste d’une part, et recherche d’un nouveau sens
du commun d’autre part.
Dans ses films les plus récents, ces questions restent centrales. Avec une grande économie
de moyens, un esprit do it yourself affirmé, Zbynek Baladran compile diverses images détournées du flux gris et apathique des médias. Il recompose ces sources hétéroclites en leur imposant le rythme de sa propre manipulation. Entre les images qui défilent et le texte en voix
off, aucune corrélation logique. La méthode de travail revendiquée est celle du malentendu et
de la contradiction permanente, dont le titre de l’exposition donne un indice.
En effet, Dead reckoning (Navigation à l’estime) est un terme technique qui désigne le calcul
de la position d’un véhicule, basé sur la distance parcourue depuis son point de départ. Parallèlement aux données utilisées, comme la vitesse, la «navigation à l’estime» intègre des
paramètres plus fluctuants comme le vent ou les courants marins. A l’image de cette science
paradoxale, dont l’objectivité affichée intègre l’erreur et l’incertitude, les deux films et l’installation de Zbynek Baladran pour la synagogue de Delme relèvent de la même méthode de
navigation.
Le film Dead Reckoning, produit pour l’exposition, et Le microscope et le télescope du temps,
réalisé en 2013, déploient ainsi les recherches de l’artiste autour de l’identification des symptômes et des contradictions qui affectent le corps social dans son ensemble. La paranoïa,
l’anxiété, l’hystérie ou la psychose seraient des traductions modernes et intériorisées chez
l’individu, d’un traumatisme historique plus large, où s’entrechoqueraient tout à la fois, par
exemple, lutte des classes, colonisation et impératif consumériste.
Marie Cozette
Zbyněk Baladrán
DEAD RECKONING
July 10, 2014 - September 21, 2014
Centre d’art contemporain La Synagogue de Delme, France
Through films, diagrams, drawings and texts, Zbyněk Baladrán offers various systems of
knowledge representation. He uses these forms to convey concepts and ideas, but it is also a
way of giving our senses more direct access to them, as well as a means of combining philosophical questions with poetical and visual modes of transmission.
The work that opens the exhibition consists of a serpentine sculpture made of pieces of paper
that spread through the space at eye-level. Zbyněk Baladrán turns us into active readers,
because one has to move, crane one’s neck, step forward or step back in order to read and
understand the meaning of the words printed on the ribbons. Like a line of thought that the
artist would like to make tangible, the installation is something of a mental diagram, a labyrinthine cartography made up of superimpositions that intentionally splinter, fragment and put
holes in discourse.
Many of the works of Zbyněk Baladrán (born in Prague in 1973) are infused with the inner
doubts and resistance experienced by the generation that lived through the historical, political and social upheavals of the countries of the former Soviet bloc after 1989. The feeling of
inadequacy and dislocation provoked by a highly paradoxical freedom, offered by a so-called
democratic world, ended up producing what the artist calls “mental spasms”. More than just
disenchantment, it was a kind of profound helplessness that took hold of the everyday life of
this generation, which oscillated between the desire to adapt to a new liberal, individualistic
environment and the search of a new sense of the common.
In his most recent films, these questions are still central. Using minimal resources with a DIY
spirit, Zbyněk Baladrán compiles a variety of images taken from the grey, apathetic media
flow. He reconstructs these heterogeneous sources while lending them the rhythm of his own
manipulation. There is no obvious correlation between the array of images and the voiceover
text. The working method he uses involves continual misunderstanding and contradiction, as
the exhibition title suggests.
In fact, Dead Reckoning is a technical term that designates the calculation of a vehicle’s
position based on the distance travelled from its point of departure. Alongside the data used
(such as speed), dead reckoning incorporates more fluctuating parameters like wind and sea
currents. Reflecting this paradoxical science, whose purported objectivity incorporates error
and uncertainty, the installation and two films produced by Zbyněk Baladrán for the Synagogue de Delme stem from the same navigation method.
The films Dead Reckoning (produced for the exhibition) and The microscope and telescope
of Time (2013) are products of the artist’s research, which revolved around identifying the
symptoms and contradictions that affect society as a whole. Paranoia, anxiety, hysteria and
psychosis are the modern, internalised individual translations of a broader historical trauma in
which class struggle, colonization and consumerism all clash.
Marie Cozette
Zbyněk Baladrán
Dead Reckoning
2014
Cut-outs, nylon, clips, chalk, wooden panels
Zbyněk Baladrán
Dead Reckoning
2014
Cut-outs, nylon, clips, chalk, wooden panels
Zbyněk Baladrán
Dead Reckoning
2014
Cut-outs, nylon, clips, chalk, wooden panels
Zbyněk Baladrán
Dead Reckoning
2014
Cut-outs, nylon, clips, chalk, wooden panels
Zbyněk Baladrán
Dead Reckoning
2014
Multi-channel synchronised video installation, HD video, sound, color, 12 min, loop
Zbyněk Baladrán
Dead Reckoning
2014
Multi-channel synchronised video installation, HD video, sound, color, 12 min, loop
Zbyněk Baladrán
The microscope and telescope of time
2014
2 channel video installation, HD video, color, sound, 11 min, loop
Zbyněk Baladrán
The microscope and telescope of time
2014
2 channel video installation, HD video, color, sound, 11 min, loop
Zbyněk Baladrán
Still the Same Place
June 1, 2013 - November 11, 2013
National Pavilion, Czech Republic and Slovak Republic, 55th Venice Biennial, Italy
The project “Still the Same Place” in the Czech and Slovak Pavilion at the Venice Biennial
will showcase an installation by Petra Feriancová of a collection relating to Venice as a deeprooted cultural phenomenon of human settlement and a video film by Zbyněk Baladrán that
critically evaluates the effect of culturally exposed places such as Venice and frames them
within an ontological, cheerless view of human existence.
Zbyněk Baladrán
Liberation or...
2013
HDV, color, sound, 11 min 42, English language
Exhibition views at Venice Bienniale, 2013
Zbyněk Baladrán
Liberation or...
2013
HDV, color, sound, 11 min 42, English language
Zbyněk Baladrán
Preliminary Report
May 4, 2013 - June 22, 2013
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, France
To reveal and to conceal, to create and then immediately destroy.
I write because we lived side-by-side, because I was
one of them, a shadow surrounded by their shadows, a body in proximity to their bodies.
The written word is a memorial to their deaths.
In a dream someone asked me:
What is matter gravitating towards?
Impulsively I replied:
To the communism of the senses
Zbyněk Baladrán
Révéler et dissimuler, créer et détruire immédiatement.
J’écris parce que nous vivions côte à côte, parce que j’étais
l’un d’eux, une ombre cernée par leurs ombres,
un corps à proximité de leurs corps.
L’écriture est un mémorial pour leurs morts.
Dans un rêve quelqu’un m’a demandé:
Vers quoi cela convergera-t-il?
J’ai répondu impulsivement:
Vers le communisme des sens.
Zbyněk Baladrán
Three Exercises
2013
digital print on paper, clips, nylon, 120 x 300 x 200 cm
Exhibition views at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, 2013
Zbyněk Baladrán
Three Exercises
2013
digital print on paper, clips, nylon, 120 x 300 x 200 cm
Exhibition views at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, 2013
Zbyněk Baladrán
10 Anarcho-communist minutes
2013
digital print on paper, nylon, clips, plumb, 10 x 380 cm
Exhibition views at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, 2013
Zbyněk Baladrán
10 Anarcho-communist minutes
2013
digital print on paper, nylon, clips, plumb, 10 x 380 cm
Exhibition views at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, 2013
Zbyněk Baladrán
Black Hole, 2013
digital print on paper, c-print, nylon, clip, 150 x 100 x 100 cm
Preliminary Report, 2013
2 channels video installation, HDV, color, sound, in English with French subtitles, 10:53 min
Exhibition views at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, 2013
Zbyněk Baladrán
Preliminary Report, 2013
2 channels video installation, HDV, color, sound, in English with French subtitles, 10:53 min
Zbyněk Baladrán
Black Hole, 2013
digital print on paper, c-print, nylon, clip, 150 x 100 x 100 cm
Exhibition views at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, 2013
Zbyněk Baladrán
Study for Liberation II, c-print, 10 x 15 cm
Study for Liberation III, c-print, 10 x 15 cm
Study for Liberation I, c-print, 10 x 15 cm
Exhibition views at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, 2013
Zbyněk Baladrán
Les Prairies, Biennale de Rennes
2013
Newway Mabilais, Rennes, France
Zbyněk Baladrán
When in 1735
2011
photographs, metal rods, metal clips, nylon thread, 250 x 250 cm
Exhibition views at Newway Mabilais, Les Prairies, Biennale de Rennes, France
Zbyněk Baladrán
When in 1735
2011
photographs, metal rods, metal clips, nylon thread, 250 x 250 cm
Exhibition views at Newway Mabilais, Les Prairies, Biennale de Rennes, France
Zbyněk Baladrán
Model of the Universe
2011
video, color, sound, in English with French subtitles, 2:50 min approx.
Exhibition views at Newway Mabilais, Les Prairies, Biennale de Rennes, France
Zbyněk Baladrán
Assemblages Against Essences
2009
HD video projection, A3 white paper (1000 pcs)
Exhibition views at FRAC Bretagne, Les Prairies, Biennale de Rennes, 2012
Zbyněk Baladrán
Assemblages Against Essences
2009
HD video projection, A3 white paper (1000 pcs)
Exhibition views at FRAC Bretagne, Les Prairies, Biennale de Rennes, 2012