Agulha Revista de Cultura # 149 | Janeiro de 2020

• THE SURREALISM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

For Brazilian readers, this issue of Agulha Revista de Cultura must feel strange at first sight. Not just because it is entirely in English, but also because it is fully devoted to a single country and was organized not by the publishers, but by a guest Editor, Czech artist and critic Jan Dočekal, who promptly answered the call. This project is something we

intend to repeat over the course of this year, including editions devoted to several other countries. This will afford a better understanding of these countries’ cultural and artistic views as seen from within. The guest editors are familiar contributors to Agulha Revista de Cultura, each one offering, according to their own worldview, a valuable and unique agenda. Jan Dočekal, for example, chose to write every text himself. Therefore, the words ahead are his, as we understand that, after all, this issue’s editorial could only be his:

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The current edition of Agulha Revista de Cultura is dedicated to Surrealism in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. My current cooperation is in friendship with Floriano Martins. I admire his insight and enthusiasm, his humanism, the fruit of spiritual spice in poetry. Floriano Martins is an important figure strengthening contemporary Surrealism.

I cannot provide credible information about contemporary Surrealism in the Czech Republic. There is no basis for mapping. Surrealism in the Czech Republic is not uniform. Unity is not looking for. It exists freely in many forms. It has a size that is not visible in exhibitions. But I say that much happens outside the visible world. No support and no publicity. I stand very close to the Czech surrealistic group Stir up. I can write about that. In the beginning there is an interview with a member of Stir up Arnošt Budík. He is a Czech living half a century in Belgium. Surrealist par excellence. Theoretician and creator. Arnošt Budík is an active, indispensable personality for Surrealism.

Lubomír Kerndl

Lubomír Kerndl (born October 12, 1954), a Czech surrealist artist and painter, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He uses the abbreviation Lukern for signing. He graduated from Brno University of Technology. Member of Stir up. Polygraf, art supporter, publisher of the Surrealist revue Styxus and Surrealist poetry, curator of the International Surrealist Gallery Devil's Tail (Čertův ocas) in a former mill on the Jihlava River in the Czech Republic. He has held twelve author exhibitions, since 2002 has been represented at seventy member exhibitions of the Stir up group, has participated in international surrealist shows in Brussels (Belgium), Coimbre and Lagoe (Portugal), repeatedly in Santiago de Chile (Chile), Cartag and Puntarenas (Costa Rica).

Jan Dočekal, editor

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• ÍNDEX

ARC149RC01LF00 Arnošt Budík, Jan Dočekal | Dream towers by Linda Filipová

https://arcagulharevistadecultura.blogspot.com/2020/03/arnost-budik-jan-docekal-dream-towers.html

ARC149RC02JB00 Jan Dočekal  | With painter Josef Bubeník about color and composition

https://arcagulharevistadecultura.blogspot.com/2020/03/jan-docekal-with-painter-josef-bubenik.html

ARC149RC03AB00 Jan Dočekal | Arnošt Budík – Nothing is unambiguous, wasted or good faith

https://arcagulharevistadecultura.blogspot.com/2020/03/jan-docekal-arnost-budik-nothing-is.html

ARC149RC04GD00 Jan Dočekal | Gallery Devil's tail

https://arcagulharevistadecultura.blogspot.com/2020/03/jan-docekal-gallery-devils-tail.html

ARC149RC05LK00 Jan Dočekal | Lubomír Kerndl - guide to the landscape of dreams

https://arcagulharevistadecultura.blogspot.com/2020/03/jan-docekal-lubomir-kerndl-guide-to.html

ARC149RC06SU00 Jan Dočekal | Surrealism & Stir up group

https://arcagulharevistadecultura.blogspot.com/2020/03/jan-docekal-surrealism-stir-up-group.html

ARC149RC07JK00 Jan Dočekal | The communicated magic of the worlds by Josef Kremláček

https://arcagulharevistadecultura.blogspot.com/2020/03/jan-docekal-communicated-magic-of.html

ARC149RC08AB00 Jan Dočekal | The Lacoste group collaborated with the Paris group André Breton

https://arcagulharevistadecultura.blogspot.com/2020/03/jan-docekal-lacoste-group-collaborated.html

ARC149RC09VP00 Jan Dočekal | Václav Pajurek – guru of the group Stir up

https://arcagulharevistadecultura.blogspot.com/2020/03/jan-docekal-vaclav-pajurek-guru-of.html

ARC149RC10ZP00 Jan Dočekal | Zdeněk Píža – one of the orthodox surrealists

https://arcagulharevistadecultura.blogspot.com/2020/03/jan-docekal-zdenek-piza-one-of-orthodox_26.html

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Agulha Revista de Cultura

UMA AGULHA NO MUNDO INTEIRO

Número 149 | Janeiro de 2020

Artista convidado: Lubomír Kerndl (República Checa, 1954)

Editor convidado: Jan Dočekal

Número especial dedicado ao Surrealismo na República Checa

Agradecimentos a Allan Vidigal, por haver traduzido o parágrafo inicial do editorial

editor geral | FLORIANO MARTINS | floriano.agulha@gmail.com

editor assistente | MÁRCIO SIMÕES | mxsimoes@hotmail.com

logo & design | FLORIANO MARTINS

revisão de textos & difusão | FLORIANO MARTINS | MÁRCIO SIMÕES

ARC Edições © 2020

Jan Dočekal | Zdeněk Píža - one of the orthodox surrealists

How many contemporary Czech artists does the cultural public have good information about? One percent? Or even less? Hard to say. In other words, we know nothing about many of those who embrace creative passion. When they do not exhibit, when they do not have friends among theorists, critics and publicists, they are in the studios like behind the castle walls. The state and private media ignore almost all visual artists. Even those who have high credit in a professional environment.

The painter (also poet) Zdeněk Píža (born in 1955) is an orthodox surrealist. Very little is written about this, but it is not entirely unknown to artists. For Píza, a good platform from which his name appears in exhibition prints and newspaper articles is the environment around the surrealist group Stir up. Since its inception since 1995 it has been a member. And the publicity around Stir up is still visibly wider than the publicity of the artists themselves.

He studied painting under Václav Pajurek. From the late 1970s he worked as an advertising designer. He has participated in a number of group exhibitions and presented his work at Stir Group exhibitions abroad. In the last decade his works have been presented at international exhibitions of contemporary Surrealism in Portugal, Chile and Costa Rica. He is represented in the anthology of contemporary Czech surrealist poetry Flight to Night. He is the author of The Game of Dreams, poems bibliophiles The Walled Trumpeter (with his own illustrations), Copper Wasp and others.

THE ONLY REAL VALUE IS ORIGINALITY

From the text by Václav Pajurek on the exhibition Píža in the historical Moravian town of Frenštát pod Radhoštěm.

The painting and literary work of Zdeněk Píža is a lone cry of protests against the assassination attack of mundaneity, banality and mental marassism. It is a specific kind of catharsis in the current crisis of values. In a time of postmodern noncritical adoration of past avant-garde achievements and shameful copying and robbing, and as a result of diluting long-discovered truths, originality is the only true value.

The original approach is essential for Zdeněk Píza. It is therefore of great importance. Of course, he solves known facts in a new way. It is always a challenge to find unusual concepts of a higher, surrealistic stage of one's existence and understanding of the world. A typical form of Pížov's expression is the intensity of the internal tension. It often has the character of painterly clashes of fine and monochromatic cylinders with distinctive structures. He does not hesitate to work with so-called indirect art techniques such as collage, decal and the like with this method.

SURREALISM IS A WORLD WITH INFINITE SPACE | A small interview with Zdeněk Píža

JD | The viewer perceiving your paintings enters the world of paintings with rich shapes and captivating colors. Your distinctive drawing ability is always essential. They say it's a gift of talent. Who does not have it in the drawing still struggles for form.

ZP | Leonardo da Vinci said that talent was only three percent of his work. The rest is a constant effort of good craftsmanship, endless inspiration nourished by a lifelong study and sensitivity of the artist to his surroundings. I'm a type of painter, but the drawing is of course alpha and omega. On it stand the composition and other essentials. But I am more interested in playing with color, with its rollers, spums and sometimes sophisticated interplay of lights and shadows that will eventually lead to impressive creations.

JD | In your youth you were intrigued by surrealism. You were a member of Karel Teige´s society and since the mid-1990s you have been part of the surrealist group Stir Up. Surrealism originated in 1919. How has it changed in the long term?

ZP | It remains essentially unchanged. A century ago he opened a world with infinite space. In this world it is possible to walk for hours and days, experience incredible stories, meet people and things of wonderful shapes and qualities. Even today, it is a peculiarity of Surrealism to see the world around you through the eyes of a miracle. To resort to a fantasy world.

JD | Vaclav Pajurek wrote that your work with light is esoteric in nature, contains secrets, allows for various interpretations.

ZP | I prefer a veristic approach to painting where central and transparent surface transitions are central elements. I'm painting with oil painting. It is a lengthy and close process. Some oil paintings still complement the relief structure to gain a different charge. In the pictures I like secrets. It provides space for audience associations. For many years I have been studying mysticism and sectarianism, which I use extensively in my work.

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Agulha Revista de Cultura

UMA AGULHA NO MUNDO INTEIRO

Número 149 | Janeiro de 2020

Artista convidado: Lubomír Kerndl (República Checa, 1954)

Editor convidado: Jan Dočekal

Número especial dedicado ao Surrealismo na República Checa

editor geral | FLORIANO MARTINS | floriano.agulha@gmail.com

editor assistente | MÁRCIO SIMÕES | mxsimoes@hotmail.com

logo & design | FLORIANO MARTINS

revisão de textos & difusão | FLORIANO MARTINS | MÁRCIO SIMÕES

ARC Edições © 2020

Jan Dočekal | Václav Pajurek – guru of the group Stir up

Surrealism as the life attitude of artists and the way of their expression in the artistic and literary field originated in Paris one hundred and a year ago. André Breton and Philippe Soupault's book Magnetic Fields is the first significant work of the new movement in artistic history. At the same time, it is the first model of automatic writing. It was composed in 1919.

Last year Surrealism reached its 100th anniversary. This very important anniversary was attended by the whole surrealist world. He cried out in a single powerful voice: Surrealism is a hundred years old, still alive, the words of some art historians that Surrealism is a distant past are ridiculously mistaken.

The anniversary of Surrealism inspired two current exhibitions in the Czech Surrealist Gallery Devil's Tail. The first, mysterious Melody, is a showcase of works by Stir up members. In the background second, with the title Our Chaos is excellent and is constantly improving, is another anniversary. Kunsthistorik, painter and poet Václav Pajurek, spiritual leader of the Stir up group, celebrated his 75th birthday. Author's exhibition, whose title spoke on Our Chaos… was a tribute to the jubilant.

Václav Pajurek belongs to the third generation of Czech surrealists. His journey of overrealistic thinking and manifestations began in the 1960s with the co-founding of the Lacoste Group, active from 1964 to 1972. Lacoste members - Arnošt Budík, Jiří Havlíček, Josef Kremláček and Václav Pajurek - have been registered by the Brussels International Association since 1965, whose designations were recorded and highlighted by the history of modern art: the Center International de l'actualité fantastique et magique. The four surrealists from the Lacoste group were short but very important members of the Brussels Center to participate in the most important European events in the field of supra-realism of the time.

In 1972, the Lacoste group was destroyed by political and social changes. In Czechoslovakia, all forms of free creative work and contacts with Western countries have been destroyed. Václav Pajurek contributed significantly to the publication of the samizdat surrealist Styx. At the beginning of the third millennium, this proceedings replaced a new proceedings called Styxus. It is published irregularly by the group Stir up under the guarantee of a Czech book publisher called Amaprint.

After November 1989, Pajurek is a member of the Czech Karel Teiga Society. In 1995 he is a founding member of the Stir up group. In the paintings from recent years, exhibited in the gallery Devil's Tail at Pajurek's jubilee, we have seen both the typical tendencies of surrealism - veristical and absolute. The first one draws on concrete ideas of a dreamy or fantasy character. In the second, the principle of automation is usually predominant. This second principle expects the artist to find surprising paintings whose starting point is largely coincidence. Pajurek's paintings, gathered under the stretched wings of imagination, are recognized as colorfully cultivated designs of themes, as testimonies of marvelous events that have their starting points in the artist's inner world. In particular, they are clear manifestations of the attitude of life, which has been a sign of Pajurek's relationship to the realities of the world for five and a half decades. From the artist's intended relationship to the universe and everyday life, paintings are born whose signs are instinct. The painter's surrealistic nerve is a mediator of extraordinary events presented by extraordinary artistic means, as the arsenal of free surrealistic struggle without blood, with harsh poetry, and with an overlap of human desire.

 The curator Lubomír Kerndl spoke at the opening of the Václav Pajurek exhibition. He also said this: Chaos is a counterpart to rationality and logic. It guarantees a great deal of freedom of thought and expression… As old wisdom says, order is for the wise, a clever man is the ruler of chaos.

Pajurek likes different ways of experimenting. These include unconventional image formats. He experiments on classically smooth pictorial surfaces, and also on surfaces that give the impression of unstable motion. It is achieved by irregularity, tearing down a flat shape, a system of strange (surrealistic) structures made of canvas and colors.

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Agulha Revista de Cultura

UMA AGULHA NO MUNDO INTEIRO

Número 149 | Janeiro de 2020

Artista convidado: Lubomír Kerndl (República Checa, 1954)

Editor convidado: Jan Dočekal

Número especial dedicado ao Surrealismo na República Checa

editor geral | FLORIANO MARTINS | floriano.agulha@gmail.com

editor assistente | MÁRCIO SIMÕES | mxsimoes@hotmail.com

logo & design | FLORIANO MARTINS

revisão de textos & difusão | FLORIANO MARTINS | MÁRCIO SIMÕES

ARC Edições © 2020

Jan Dočekal | The Lacoste group collaborated with the Paris group André Breton

From time to time it is advisable to recall the past so that we can see things and events from the present time more clearly. It is a commemoration of the 56th anniversary of the foundation of the surrealistic group Lacoste in Czech Republic (the name is based on the ruins of the Marquis de Sade castle in Provence).

Lacoste originated in 1964 from the friendship of four university students, Arnošt Budík, Jiří Havlíček, Josef Kremláček (†2015) and Václav Pajurek, from their desire to develop their direction in the space of imagination and also to try to live in parallel surrealistic live. They were already captured in surrealism by artistic expressions, but they were really trying to adapt their lifestyle, as the four decades old surrealist postulates required. They realized that in a country with a prevailing ideology strictly rejecting deviations of all kinds and inadaptable individuality, this could not be easy (This is not a stylistic figure of the author of the article, but part of Josef Kremláček's later memory, 1999).

The founding members of the Lacoste group soon joined Karol Baron (†2004), František Deák and Aleš Navrátil (†2019). Three other artists, Lubomír Kressa (†1981), František Malý (†1989) and Ladislav Novák (†1999), took part in the group's as guests. Lacoste cooperated with foreign surrealist groups. She had the most inspiring contacts with the Brussels-based C.I.A.F.M.A.,  creative group, and with the famous Parisian group André Breton, the main representative and theorist of surrealism. In 1924 he wrote the Manifesto of Surrealism, died in 1966.

In the Manifest Breton writes, among others: Surrealism is a pure psychic automatism through which the real functioning of thought should be expressed, orally, in writing or in any other way. Dictation of thought in the absence of any control exercised by reason, beyond any aesthetic or moral consideration. Surrealism is based on a belief in the higher reality of certain forms of association until its time of neglected, in the omnipotence of a dream, in an impartial play of thought. It aims to finally eliminate all other psychological mechanisms and take their place in solving the major problems of life.

The Lacoste Group has held a number of exhibitions. Until 1969, she published a bulletin entitled Styx, still available in libraries at some of the Western European cultural centers. The frenzied activity of the Lacoste Group, as well as the members' dream of freedom, was interrupted on August 21, 1968 and its political and cultural consequences. The last Lacoste exhibition in Czechoslovakia was held in 1971 in Třebíč, with the participation of nearly two dozen guests, the last ever one year later in Copenhagen, Denmark. A selection of works by Lacoste members returned to Třebíč after twenty-eight years, in 1999 (without Fr. Deák and Fr. Malý). Most of his works were created during the years of the group's activities. But it was not a balance, "just" a remarkable reminder of a fragment of the Moravian (with the participation of Karol Baron and Slovak) art scene in the second half of the 60s.

In 1994 the Moravian part of the Karel Teiga Society ceased to exist in Ostrava. Its members and the founding members of the already non-existent Lacoste group (without Jiří Havlíček, who has chosen the status of occasional guest) will be founded in independent terms by a new surrealist group called Stir up. She agreed with the program of the Karel Teiga Society and with the former tradition of the Lacoste group. Twelve years later, in the spring of 2006, Lubomír Kerndl, a painter, sculptor and polygraph, one of the representatives of Stir up, acquired the former Mohelský Mill on the left bank of the lower reach of the Jihlava River. The reconstruction of three compact floors resulted in the Devil's Tail Gallery (Devil's Tail is a historical name for the nearby river meander) attributed to the Stir Up Group. This year, for the fourteenth year, it has been serving exhibitions of works by group members and guests from us and abroad. The curators are Lubomír Kerndl and Václav Pajurek. Under Kerndl's editorial leadership, the Styx newsletter was renewed, with a new Styxus title.

 The claim that the Gallery Devil's Tail is the target of a cohort of Surrealism annually would be inappropriate. However, all real visitors deserve respect. If contemporary visual art is not for everyone, the second sentence must follow that even with the uniqueness of creative ideas and beauty often hidden, surrealism is a goal only for the initiate. But those who come to the Mohelno Mill, if they can be judged from the cloaked inscriptions in the "hideously" realistic guestbook and from verbal opinion, consider the Devil's Tail Gallery homeland. And there is his, the devil's tail, the cross-border dimension. It reaches to European, North American, Central American and South American studios and creative corners. From here, often through Arnošt Budík's contacts, contemporary Surrealism from the world comes to Czech Republic. Privately, with friendly confidence. And in Belgium, Portugal, Brazil, Costa Rica, Chile and elsewhere, the work of the members of the Stir up group and its Moravian guests can be seen reciprocally, because some surrealists from some countries have become friends.           

The Lacoste group lasted eight years, 1964-1972. Its founding members today: PhDr. Arnošt Budík, born 1936, art historian, theoretician of surrealism, poet, collageist, member of the surrealist group Stir up, since 1969 living in Brussels. Doc. PhDr. Jiří Havlíček, born 1946, art historian, painter and graphic artist, university lecturer. Academic painter Josef Kremláček, born 1937, painter, graphic artist, illustrator, teacher, former member of the surrealist group Stir up, died in summer 2015 in Třebíč. PhDr. Václav Pajurek, born 1944, art historian, painter, sculptor, poet, guru of the surrealist group Stir up, curator.

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Agulha Revista de Cultura

UMA AGULHA NO MUNDO INTEIRO

Número 149 | Janeiro de 2020

Artista convidado: Lubomír Kerndl (República Checa, 1954)

Editor convidado: Jan Dočekal

Número especial dedicado ao Surrealismo na República Checa

editor geral | FLORIANO MARTINS | floriano.agulha@gmail.com

editor assistente | MÁRCIO SIMÕES | mxsimoes@hotmail.com

logo & design | FLORIANO MARTINS

revisão de textos & difusão | FLORIANO MARTINS | MÁRCIO SIMÕES

ARC Edições © 2020

Jan Dočekal | The communicated magic of the worlds by Josef Kremláček

Work and hobby, reason and emotion, order and adventure. The sum of these contradictions is creation. The art style of Josef Kremláček (1937-2015) in the illustration of books for children and youth has a fundamental aesthetic lesson from the traditions of Moravian folk nativity sculpture. Sometimes apparent, sometimes in the suppressed, but always present.

By perfecting little-used forms of creative work, the most important of which is the application of a method called dekalk (sweeping or smashing a magical stain) and spraying colors onto small areas of the image using a stencil. This is the way in which Kremláček arrived at an original artistic manuscript.

More than half of Kremláček's illustrations have been made in the studio, which has a humorous hyperbole. This is how the original pictures were born. They provide fractions of the storyline literary artwork. It aesthetically reflects the profiles of literary heroes. The originality is based on the peculiarities of shapes and color possibilities. It has a source in the author's world and goes a compelling journey into the world of children.

 Poetic magic and fantasy (Kremláček was a poet of imagination) has a bond with Kremláček's childhood and the playfulness he had throughout his life. It has greatly strengthened her in the space of spirit during years of artistic work. Kremláček's illustrations are original works of book graphics. They have a significant content and formal component. Narrative aesthetic way, exaggeration, allegory, wit and didactic help children discover unknown worlds. However, Kremláček's pictures also affect an adult person.

The other half of Kremláček's work of art has the first unity in disunity with half. They are related as sisters, nurses in the applied art technologies. But different in artistic meaning. We are talking about free painting, free graphic sheets, mostly colored lithographs, applied graphics and architectural interiors. There is almost always a connecting formal element. It is a method called dekalk. He has inexhaustible magic power. It grows from the diverse beauty of surrealistic artistic possibilities. Surrealists say they don't need aesthetics, they don't even exist. Before the decalk method, however, the general theory of aesthetics slips off the hat. The enigma of shapes, changing dimensions, and a multitude of meanings is the source of the joy of a sensitive person and his desire for the unknown. Kremláček´s decal found himself randomly while working on a printing press. It happened fifty-five years ago. At first he did not know that dekalk already had a history. Then he became acquainted with her, entered the next stage of developing imagination.

In a specific branch of his Surrealism, Kremláček was famous for holding various recessions. He reveled in unusual jokes. But not jokes in speech. He was funny in the construction of events. He loved going almost theatrical. There were two personalities in Kremláček, an artist and an actor. An artist still influenced by fantasy and surrealism, but also an author of cartoon humor, and an actor in the figures of his illustrations. He invented surprising situations that always had an abundance of surrealist intelligence. He didn't need any collaborators. He had always performed solo. Characters in fairy tales gave the appearance of his friends. They are kept anonymously for many years. The highlight of this magic from other worlds was the establishment of an imaginary camel rental. From her came, imaginary, two-backed animals for walks with the tamer who named himself Yusuf ben Ali. The principle of the play is present, now unchanged, permanently, in every Kremláček's art work. On the one hand, in the themes of sophisticated imaginative landscapes with fictional vegetation resembling sci-fi films, on the other, in technically precise color portrait lithographs, which are witty paraphrases of paintings by Italian Renaissance masters.

Kremláček's work in the area of ​​illustrative as well as in the field of free art is in a relative harmony. This is also the sign of the creator. He is filing in front of our eyes with a story of the rich world of the author's magic.

*****

Agulha Revista de Cultura

UMA AGULHA NO MUNDO INTEIRO

Número 149 | Janeiro de 2020

Artista convidado: Lubomír Kerndl (República Checa, 1954)

Editor convidado: Jan Dočekal

Número especial dedicado ao Surrealismo na República Checa

editor geral | FLORIANO MARTINS | floriano.agulha@gmail.com

editor assistente | MÁRCIO SIMÕES | mxsimoes@hotmail.com

logo & design | FLORIANO MARTINS

revisão de textos & difusão | FLORIANO MARTINS | MÁRCIO SIMÕES

ARC Edições © 2020

Jan Dočekal | Surrealism & Stir up group

The Stir up group was established in the Czech Republic in 1995. It continued the tradition of the surrealist group Lacoste and the Karel Teige´s Society.

Active members of the Stir up in the present era are: spiritual leader Václav Pajurek, art historian and artist, Pavel Bezděčka, Josef Bubeník, Arnošt Budík (lives in Brussels, Belgium), Jan Dočekal, Linda Filipová, Martin Hronza, Lubomir Kerndl, Gabriela Kopcová, Vladimir Kubicek, Zdenek Piza, Josef Quis, Ondrej Vorel. In recent years, the work of three deceased members of the group - Zdeněk Cibulka (1960-2013), Josef Kremláček (1937-2015, co-founder of the Lacoste group) and Jan Wolf (1941-2016) has been completed.

Confirming the surrealist attitude to reality is a matter of course for Stir up members. These are some uncompromising principles. They are - anti-clericalism, anti-communism, rejection of commerce and awards and prizes of all kinds. The creation of the members of Stir up is characterized by psychic automatism as well as an internal model, with the necessity of abundant imagination. A very important component of creation is the principle of chance, from which unforeseen images are revealed. The group publishes the Styxus newsletter. In it, members have the opportunity to present reproductions of their works as well as ideas related to creation.

 The English name of the group Stir up has more meanings: wake up, kindle, stir up, outrage. Yes. Awakening, igniting, stirring and outraging. All of this, the Stir up surrealists would like to achieve with their works. In the present, however, this is a big and difficult task in the Czech Republic. There is a passion in society for the greatest possible consumption. There is not much interest in art in all its different forms.

Official sociological statistics indicate that only one per mille of residents seek continuous contact with creative culture. And an equally small portion of the public consistently exhibits lessons and distinctiveness for the inner reception of art forms and their direction. Therefore, in the current situation of the Czech Republic there is a doubt about the possibilities of influential influence of Surrealism.

Thus, the surrealistic tendency of the need for a continuous revolution of the spirit of man is more of an ideological intention than the reality attained. Despite this, surrealism is a continually vivid way of creative expression by numerous artists, painters, graphic artists and sculptors. He finds new adepts. Sigmund Freud's words about culture are still valid: It is not here to allow us to forget reality, but to make reality for us greater. Greater reality, surreality.

Stir up has its permanent gallery. It's called Devil's Tail. It occupies three floors of a former water mill in a beautiful natural environment on the lower reach of the Jihlava River near the town of Třebíč. The gallery is administered by Stir up Lubomír Kerndl, painter, sculptor, poet, polygraph.

Surrealists from abroad exhibited as guests in the Devil's Tail Gallery and at exhibitions of the group in other places in the Czech Republic: Eva Garcia (Argentina), Miguel Lohlé (Argentina), Walter De Rycke (Belgium), Henri Lejeune (Belgium), Thomas Rayner (Belgium) Heloisa Pessoa (Brazil), Noël Arnaud (France), Jean-Martin Bonteux (France), Aurélien Dauguet (France), Adrien Dax (France), Jorge Herrera Fuentealba (Chile), Fredy Flores Knistoff (Chile), Leal Labrin (Chile) Chile), Kathleen Fox (South

Africa), Amirah Gazel (Costa Rica), Rik Lina (Netherlands), Miguel de Carvalho (Portugal), Artur do Cruzeiro Seixas (Portugal), Fernando H. Garcia Diaz (Uruguay), Sasha Vlad (USA), Tony Pusey (United Kingdom), John W. Welson (United Kingdom).

Thirty years ago, Czech writer Ladislav Fuks wrote: We are rich with our dreams. Religion typical for contemporary surrealists in the Czech Republic. Their free creation on a wave of dreams is certainly their widest platform of creative work. The Stir up group has so far held a number of thematic exhibitions, most of which have been reprinted in more places in the Czech Republic, and abroad most frequently in Brussels, Belgium.

Titles of some of the exhibited collections: Hommage á Cassanova, Subversion de l´Imposible, Part of Fire, Kinship is Inherited, Foggy Mirror, On the Storm Retina, Star with Three Crystals, Hommage á Sigmund Freud, Light Fires, Evocation, Hommage á Miguel de Carvalho, Mystery of the Initiated, Memento mori, Black humor, Shadows of the forgotten watches, We are all made of love, Restless Dreams, Chaos of the Seventh Dimension.

*****

Agulha Revista de Cultura

UMA AGULHA NO MUNDO INTEIRO

Número 149 | Janeiro de 2020

Artista convidado: Lubomír Kerndl (República Checa, 1954)

Editor convidado: Jan Dočekal

Número especial dedicado ao Surrealismo na República Checa

editor geral | FLORIANO MARTINS | floriano.agulha@gmail.com

editor assistente | MÁRCIO SIMÕES | mxsimoes@hotmail.com

logo & design | FLORIANO MARTINS

revisão de textos & difusão | FLORIANO MARTINS | MÁRCIO SIMÕES

ARC Edições © 2020