Days of Unearthing

Days of Unearthing” is a cross-border artistic collaboration between two major universities - the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM) and the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Die Angewandte). The exhibition presents the contemporary art scenes of the two Central European capitals and takes visitors to the basement of the Czech Centre in addition to the main exhibition rooms.

Starting in spring and continuing into the summer, the Czech Centre in Vienna has been transformed into a contrasting time capsule of various “journeys”. The newly created spaces, corners and subdivisions are like optics that visualise the stages of these explorations. And you, dear guests, are cordially invited to orientate yourselves in these scenarios with the help of the map in your hands. Go on a search, find perceptible differences and fleeting connections in this agglomerate of perspectives and individual abstractions. And should you lose your bearings, you can consult the Atlas of Unearthing to continue your journey.

A work of art can be perceived as a testimony or a remnant of a certain time - be it as an artefact that is part of a certain process or the result of it. At the Czech Centre in Vienna, an interplay of these two circumstances can be seen. The collected artefacts from the two painting departments (led by Jiří Černický in Prague and Henning Bohl in Vienna) form a time capsule in which they are perceived as relics of a specific period - the social constellations themselves become “relics” of a young generation of contemporary visual artists working in Central Europe.

The link between the exhibits on display is the Atlas of Unearthing, a book created by students from both departments. The atlas not only serves as a supplementary guide or catalogue of archive materials for the exhibition itself, but also represents a testimony of its own that will endure as a material remnant of the exhibition, as an actual relic of a specific time and situation.

The exhibition is divided into two thinking spaces; the basement, where the atlas is housed - inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s idea of retelling the story of humanity by redefining technology, i.e. no longer weapons such as the spear, but carrier bags are of decisive importance - and the main exhibition space, which is presented on three levels of immanence: Separation, Initiation, Descent and Return. Although these levels/stages are based on Joseph Campbell’s phantasm of the monomyth, the so-called “hero’s journey”, they frame relics of a multitude of different “journeys” and developments, the scope of which limits the normative heroic perspective. In this way, we focus on an examination of today’s heterogeneous micro-odysseys and their inherent contradictions.