The SPZ Gallery presents an ongoing research project by the MeetFactory artist-in-residence Taf Hassam (DAI, 2010) in collaboration with Kirby Mages.

Critical Material for a New Generation is a series of readings based on a continuing research into a photograph found at the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam, entitled Czech Dissidents Gathering Somewhere in Bohemia, photographed in 1982 by the Amsterdam sociologist and lecturer Jef Helmer.

The project by Taf and Kirby bridges the past through creating an experimental, informal space for encounters, transcending traditional forms of gallery display. Exploring the Czech music underground of the 1970s & 1980s and the works of legendary poet, art critic and theoretician of the underground Ivan „Magor" Jirous, the SPZ Gallery will be transformed into a fully functioning bar and self-publishing house–featuring videos and various samizdat materials courtesy of the Libri Prohibiti archive in Prague. Each week different artists and local experimental music platforms will be invited to host an evening at the gallery, consisting of exhibitions, film screenings and concerts. The day will also include a peer-to-peer reading group session featuring key texts linking to the subjects of the photograph.

'The aim of the underground here in Bohemia is the creation of a second culture, a culture that will not be dependent on the official channels of communication, social recognition, and the hierarchy of values laid down by the establishment.'

A Report on the Third Czech Musical Revival (1975) Ivan Jirous

PROGRAM:

Čtení textů bude probíhat během tří násedujících pátků vždy v 15.00. Účast není třeba předem potvrzovat, stačí přijít. / The reading groups will take place on three following Fridays at 15.00. If you would like to attend the reading group, just come by, the door will be open.

Čtvrtek / Thursday 23-5-2013 (Vernisáž / Opening)

18.00–22.00

Hosté / Guests: Ryan Andrews + Kristina Mirova

Tisk knih, volný bar / Printing Books, Free Bar

Pátek / Friday 31–5–2013

První čtení / 1st Reading Group 15h00 – 17h00

Bar: 17.00 – 22.00

Hosté / Guests: Petra Virtanen (Helsinki Underground) + Kirby Mages

Hudba a promítání filmů / Music & Film Screening

Pátek / Friday: 07–6–2013

Druhé čtení / 2nd Reading Group 15.00 – 17.00

Bar: 17.00 – 22.00

Host / Guest: Eastern Daze

Koncert / Concert Střed Světa (CZ) + Orphan Fairytale (BE)

Pátek / Friday 14–6–2013 (Dernisáž / Closing)

Třetí čtení / 3rd Reading Group 15.00 – 17.00

Host / Guest: A.M. 180 Collective

Hudba a výstava / Music & Exhibition

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A.M.180 is an independent creative and promotional collective based on DIY principles and punk ethics. Since September 2003 A.M.180 has been running same-titled multifunctional space in Prague, the Czech Republic. Main mission: a platform for contact between independent music scene and contemporary art scene. A.M.180 arranges exhibitions, live shows and performances.

http://am180.org

Easterndaze is a project that explores and highlights the best new music from Central and Eastern Europe through a variety of channels, including radio (London's Resonance FM, Czech public radio station Radio Wave, Habitat.fm netradio) shows, concerts, and music releases (compilation and further planned releases on Audiotong and our new side-project, the BABA VANGA label).

Easterndaze aims to explore the current political and social status quo in some of the countries in this region through the eyes of the ones most vulnerable to changes in society – young artists who are still under-the-radar.

http://easterndaze.net

Taf Hassam (1980, UK) is an artist and organiser. He studied Photography and English Literature in Brighton and later settled in Ireland where he had an active role in the art, theatre and music scenes. In 2005, he moved to Amsterdam to study at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (NL) receiving a Bachelor in Fine Art and an Honours Degree in Artistic Research & Scientific Practice. Between 2008 and 2010 he completed a Master in Fine Art at The Dutch Art Institute (NL).

Taf Hassam's work oscillates between photography, text, performance, and sound, and often assumes curatorial and editorial roles as forms of artistic practice. Generally his work deals with activating what he calls 'the dead space' of the conventional exhibition model, while highlighting the interrelationships between cultural production and politics. His practice extends to producing homemade publications, music events, lectures, exhibitions, and his topics can range from questions surrounding self-organisation, marginalised and fictionalised histories, to the history of free expression in music. In 2010, he co-founded Goleb, an independent art space in Amsterdam where he continues to work as an organiser.

Recent projects include: Like Fire, Expansible Over All Space, And Like The Air In Which We Breathe, Move (2013) performance and exhibition at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India; John Ferrari–An American Tragedy (2012) photographic and text work, as part of the group exhibition Porta Nigra at Hidde van Seggelen Gallery, London; Street by Street–Block by Block (2012) publication and lecture with Roel Griffioen and Jeremiah Day, INexactly This: Festival of Independents, Amsterdam; f.i.r.e.i.n.c.a.i.r.o. (2012) live radio and event space, appeared as part of the conference We Are The Time: Art Lives in the Age of Global Transition at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam.

Kirby Mages (1986, US) is an artist and writer based in Chicago. She received her BFA from The Cooper Union in New York where she concentrated in video, critical theory, and poetry. Her work has been shown as part of the New Filmmakers series at Anthology Film Archives (NY), 16Beaver (NY), Goleb (NL), and other self-organized venues. In 2008 she was the recipient of the Elizabeth Kray Poetry Prize, which inaugurated her into the Academy of American Poets.

She considers her work to be an ongoing investigation of the self in a generation of alienated subjects in an increasingly corporate landscape. She has developed a personal approach to explaining the role of a political subject through the use of poetics and intimate moments, with the hope of communicating an experience of affirmative connection and binding. Through a combination of text, video, and performance, Kirby Mages works with creating new forms of performativity in order to sing a song of the self that conceives of the individual voice as extraordinary and expansive.

Kurátorka / Cuator: Karina Kottová (CZ)

Texty k výstavě / Exhibition texts: Jiří Kocián

Překlad / Translation: Jiří Kocián, Roel Griffioen

Fotografie / Photograph: Jef Helmer

Grafický design / Graphic Design: Marius Jopen

Koordinace / Coorination: Vladimíra Mikušová, Zuzana Jakalová

Produkce / Production: Ryan Andrews, Kristina Mirova, Eva Slunečková, Monika Komjatiová

Zvláštní poděkování / Special Thanks To: Jef Helmer, International Institute for Social History (Amsterdam), Libri Prohibiti, Markéta Sasínová, Julie Tomsová, Petra Virtanen, Jussi Suvanto, Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Eastern Daze, Střed Světa, Orphan Fairytale, A.M. 180, Alexander Krone, Angela Lidderdale and many more ...

Galerie SPZ
Pštrossova 8, 110 00 Praha 1
info@galeriespz.com