04 Jul 2010

UMELEC / MAGAZINE New Issue 1 - 2010

Umelec Magazine since 1997 is the only art magazine devoted to current visual culture in the Czech Republic. It is directed to the international scene, particularly the wider European circle. Its emphasis on art in Central and Eastern Europe stems from its unique position in that region.

Content:

MAD MEG
Noelle Papay
profile
4–13
A museum of bizarre anatomical and botanical creations, oriental fantasies and unique comic art of French graphic artist Mad Meg are mixing the atavism of European pandemonium with the tradition of
Hieronymus Bosch.

THE KASSABOYS: COSMOPOLITAN LOCAL-PATRIOTS
Lenka Kukurová
profile
14–18
Three young Košice artists turn the hate-filled and shameful ideas of Slovak politics into art, thus caricaturing the deeply rooted reactionary character of cultural (un)consciousness.

NEW MYTHOLOGY: THE WORK OF SVÄTOPLUK MIKYTA
Lenka Kukurová
profile
19–23
Slovak artist Svätopluk Mikyta offers a critical revival of Slovak folk traditions and cultural-political fragments recovered from under layers of forgotten official culture.

TOM�?Š DŽADOŇ: WILL TO TRADITION AND IMAGES OF NOSTALGIA
Palo Fabuš
profile
24–27
In a place where looking back is limited either to nostalgia or apathy, Džado�? finds a new tradition in the metaphor of the communist prefab housing block as family home.

IN FACT, I DIDN’T START ON ANY JOURNEY
Ivan Mečl and Veronika Vomáčková
grayscale
28–37
For many, this artist is a new face in the way we have understood this term here at Umělec – a face that will probably stay new forever and will not become a part of the art world. Pages from a visual diary offer the traces of a personal odyssey.

YUNSHENG’S LANGUAGE OF LOVE
Ivan Mečl and Zhao Yunsheng
grayscale
38–51
A look at Chinese art that is just a little bit different from what we are used to encountering in color catalogues of contemporary Far Eastern art. Perhaps it is different because this young artist does not act like one. Yunsheng makes pencil drawings of various faux pas of love, and the article’s author presents his thoughts on the artist’s work.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE WORLD OF MOUTH
Palo Fabuš
essay
52–57
The center of power and communication has shifted from the elites onto the lower levels of society, but personal responsibility is lagging behind and the power centers continue to spread their empty images.

GOSHKA MACUGA: THE NATURE OF THE BEAST
Lizzy Le Quesne
solutions
58–61
The taming of history and the political adventures of artworks, as depicted in a long-term exhibition by a Polish artist at London’s Whitechapel Gallery.

THE SPIRIT THAT RETURNS
Line Ulekleiv
solutions
62–67
What is behind the recent return of spirituality in the visual arts? Is it in fact a return, or are we merely seeing the continuation of a timeless topic?

"WHEN READING OR LISTENING TO WESTERN VISIONARIES OF THE PAST DECADE, WE CAN FEEL A SENSE OF DEFEATISM, CONFUSION, AND A DEEP LONGING FOR THE END. SO LET’S GIVE IT A GO!"

ENTROPY
Michal Vimmer
The End of the Western
Concept
68–71
Doctor and writer Michal Vimmer – author of Pleonasmus and Bad Design – asks whether the strict rationalism of functional design is truly the pinnacle of nature or whether it is merely an artifice of modernism.

DEADSPACE
Michal Vimmer
The End of the Western
Concept
72–73
In a deliberation written a year later, Vimmer asks what is hidden in the dead space of democracy