88 Years of Warmth

„When I‘m by an open fire, I often imagine that the energy from the sun that had been nourishing the wood all those years is being released by burning. That the fire also consists of the summer day I was born and many other days that preceded it. The 88 years-old tree holds inside the sun that couldn’t be absorbed by the greenhouse because it was in ruins for some time. It’s actually a horizontally laid timeline that you gradually cut from and year by year are burnt till you reach zero. I like the idea that this same energy, that has been released today by burning, will heat the space of the greenhouse and the visitors can carry it away in the form of warm tea in their stomach.“ O. M.
Installations and interventions by Oldřich Morys are about unexpected use of everyday objects and their radical reinterpretation, overturn and distortion. In his projects, Morys combines free and enchanted fantasy of a child (he currently works at a nursery school) with intelligence, persistence and technical skill of an adult. The resulting works of art can be perceived as attempts and interventions bordering common sense (or rather institutional criticism) that do not lack generosity, cute intensity and mischievous sense of humor.

Morys’s exhibition in Entrance Gallery is loosely connected to his previous work; tree sculptures, but it is also in direct dialogue with the environment of the monastery garden and the orangery. After discussing the monastery gardener, Morys moved one of the dried-up trees from the garden inside the orangery. The orangery can also be seen as a revived replica of itself; the original greenhouse has been turned into a showcase which is filled with a ready-made plum tree that according to annual rings dates back to 1927. The custodians follow Morys’s instructions and turn the tree into energy that is used to warm up tea during the exhibition. Morys concludes this land-art contemplation about cycles of nature with a conciliatory and hearty gesture of Christmas hospitality. Come for a cup of time.

Text by Pavel Vančát

Wikipedia.cz: 1927
– 27th May – The third election of President T. G. Masaryk.

– May – Charles A. Lindbergh, an American pilot, flew over the Atlantic ocean without a stop as the first man in human history (course of flight: Long Island – Paris), the flight took 33 hours and 29 minutes.

– A leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Sergei, signs a document pledging complete and unconditioned loyalty of the Church to the Soviet power.

– Faces of four American Presidents started to be sculpted into the rock massive.

– Australia moves its main city from Melbourne to Canberra.

– 6th October– The first feature-length motion picture with talking sequences, The Jazz Singer, was released.
Births:

5th May – Eva Fuková, an American photographer with a Czech origin.

10th May – Ladislav Hejdánek, a Czech philosopher

Miloslav Jágr, a Czech painter and industrial artist († 23rd August, 1997)

9th June – Viktor Rudiš, a Czech architect

7th August – Jiří Malásek, a Czech piano player and music composer († 26th September, 1983)

3rd September– Zdeněk Palcr, a sculptor, restorer, art theoretician and typographer († 12th July, 1996)

12th November – František Šťastný, a motorcycle racer († 8th April, 2000)