ART-BRUT-ALL: A Crude Diamond in DOX, Prague

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Many believe heavy metal music might be a symbol of roughnecks, but it can also be a lifestyle, an ironic view of the world, or an escape from this world. It has avoided all fashionable and intellectual waves and numerous trends – and hence remains authentic.

On Thursday, 27th June, artists from the University of Ostrava opened an exhibition called ART-BRUT-ALL, in the prestigious Centre for Contemporary Art, DOX in Prague. The exhibition will be open until 16th September 2019. The name of the exhibition is a wordplay: it is based on the name of a local hardcore metal festival, Brutal Assault, and the term of Art Brut (Outsider art), which is used for untrained art, or art in its raw form.

The things that can be seen and heard as brutal and raw under particular circumstances may be grasped and experienced as authentic and original, both on the metal music scene and in the art culture. The name could be understood as a central slogan of the exhibition, as well as a “massive support” of everyday perception of the world from many different angles.

The exhibition presents the works of many renowned artists, not only from Ostrava: Daniel Balabán, Kateřina Barabášová, Erik Binder, Tereza Eisnerová, Pavel Forman, Martin Gerboc, Xénie Hoffmeisterová, Vendula Chalánková, Chen Qingqing Jun‘ichiro Ishii, Paweł Jarodzki, Martin Juef, MK Kaehne, Martin Kocourek, Tomáš Koudela, František Kowolowski, Jan Krtička, Jiří Kuděla, Zorka Lednárová, Petr Lysáček, Barbora Maštrlová, Stefan Milkov, Nicolai, Jiří Petrbok, Antti Pussinen, Rafani, Václav Rodek, Sadofsky a Trantina, Helena Sequens, Marek Schovánek, František Skála, Paulina Skavová, Adam Stanko, Ivo Sumec, Jiří Surůvka, Marek Škubal, Ivana Štenclová, František Štorm, Niko Tschekladze, Jan Vytiska, Krzystof Walaszek, and Illiko Zautashvili.

Tomáš Koudela and Pavel Forman, academics from the Univesity of Ostrava’s, Faculty of Education, Department of Arts are the main organisers of the exhibition and also curators of the exhibition project.

The exhibition opened at DOX Centre for Contemporary Art at 7 p.m. on 27 June.

Updated: 14. 08. 2019