Czech Center,  New York City

September 14 - October 14, 2006

Barbara Benish (US), Petr Stanický (CZ), Petra Valentová (CZ)

Curated by Aniko Erdosi (H/USA)

 

What feelings, impressions, emotions or even philosophies can be described by the distance? The distance between a given place and a person might turn as well into a distance from the self. It is like a broken and repainted image, or a redrawn map, which evokes various questions and reactions.

 

Are we really changing during the physical relocation or only our focus is going to be shifted? Is the identity just an illusion? Do we identify ourselves with the distance itself or rather with the new place?

 

The change of context reinterprets values and points out to the provisional and ephemeral character of things. All of us - day after day more -, who relocated for a certain period of time share the challenging and moving experience of being "out of context."The works of Barbara Benish, Petr Stanicky and Petra Valentova in the Czech Center New York deal with these issues, raising questions and finding potential answers to the challenges of displacement.

 

As Fulbright fellows they personally experienced relocation and became familiar with its impacts on human, mental and intellectual activities.Their artworks, which has been inspired by their experiences and emotions, can be read as personal distance-models between America and the Czech Republic. They represent various artistic positions, sometimes involving us into very personal, almost intimate stories, other times referring to cultural cliches, or the quoting the forms of mass-production and global industry. Dealing with these topics they do not lack critical thoughts or confrontations, as they experiences did not either and in some works we can witness the resolving power of humor as well.

 

The works exhibited here can be considered as examples from the endless, overlapping options of more generally the geographical, historical and cultural, as well as of more individually the intellectual and emotional distance.

 

Benish, Stanicky and Valentova work in the sculptural media and participated in a dialogue, what created the frame of this show. They were all recipients of the Fulbright fellowship for postgraduate studies.

 

Aniko Erdosi

New York, 2004 November

 

The exhibition was at the Czech Center in New York City

 

About the Fulbright

Fulbright Commission is the largest U.S. international exchange program offering opportunities for students, scholars, and professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and teaching in elementary and secondary schools worldwide. Although Fulbright Commission was established in the US in 1946, the Komise J.W. Williama Fulbrighta was established in 1991, appointed by the agreement between the United States and the Czech Republic.aragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.