Jan Dočekal | Gallery Devil‘s tail

In 2004, painter, graphic artist and illustrator Josef Kremláček brought a new member, his younger friend Lubomír Kerndl, to the surrealist group Stir up. He is a photographer, draftsman, painter, poet, graphic artist and polygraph. Very active artist and economist.

From the early days, it has the idea that the Stir Up Group needs a permanent gallery roof. In 2005 it leases a former water mill, named Mohelský. It is located not far from Třebíč. The Jihlava River flows through Třebíč. On the bank of the same river, thirty kilometers to the east, stands the Mohelský Mill just rented. Kerndl sends this imaginative message on the river's waves: I'll create a gallery in the mill. For the Stir up group, for its guests from the Czech Republic and abroad.

The intention is realized. In the spring of the following year, the work of several hardworking surrealists creates a spacious gallery. It has three floors and is named Devil's Tail. It is a convincing, surrealist concept. But this is not new. Not far upstream is meander in the deep valley. It has a historical name Devil's Tail. The new gallery was given the same name.

The opening ceremony of the gallery took place on 1 May 2006. Arnošt Budík had a great correspondence and many phone calls in Brussels. He invited many guests to czech the mill. Surreal friends from Western Europe, Central and South America. Together with the members of the Stir up group, they created a great show of surrealistic works of art. Three floors filled the dreams of imagination. At the beginning guru Stir up Václav Pajurek said: Devil's Gallery is the only surrealistic gallery in the Czech Republic. Lubomír Kerndl's dream got outlines of magic reality.

 Visiting foreign authors include surrealists and imaginatively oriented artists of well-known names, members of the international group Phasses, Miguel Lohlé (Argentina), Walter De Rycke (Belgium), Henri Lejeune (Belgium), Thomas Rayner (Belgium), Rik Lina (Netherlands), Noël Arnaud (France), Jean Martin Bonteux (France), Leal Labrin (Chile), Amirah Gazel (Costa Rica), John W. Welson (UK) and others. Some donated their works to the gallery. They are seen at a permanent exhibition.

The curators are Lubomír Kerndl and Václav Pajurek. They care about the content and quality of seasonal and short-term exhibitions. Guests from abroad are already at home in the gallery. Over the years, others have come. Among them Breton's daughter Aube Elléouët Breton. For example, say words that do not categorically fit surrealistic rhetoric. However, they are absolutely accurate: Surrealism in the Devil's Tail gallery is presented with the eyes and minds of visitors with very realistic power. This is the fifteenth season in 2020.

Artists' contacts are traditionally bilateral. Stir up members are invited to international presentations of contemporary surrealism. In recent years they have been held in Portugal, Chile and Costa Rica. In 2019, the 100th anniversary of Surrealism was added. They called a journalistic response. Mostly in web cultural magazines in Central and South America, also in Portugal. In the gallery of the former mill, yes under the devil's tail, every year visitors saw an interesting work with great potential for surrealist tendencies. In return, artists from close studios in European countries but also from countries across the Pacific Ocean were sent to the Czech Republic. Certainly I am not mistaken when I say that the breadth of friendship that is among surrealists can not be found in other creative groups. Surrealists are individualists, but have a sense of favor for other like-minded creators.

*****

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