Naturally Postnatural | Krištof Kintera
Galerie Ron Mandos, Amsterdam
10.11.2018 - 29.12.2018
Opening:
Saturday 10 November
5 -7 PM
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Galerie Ron Mandos proudly presents the exhibition Naturally Postnatural by Krištof Kintera, one of the most prominent artists working in the Czech Republic today. Exploring the boundaries of contemporary sculpture, Kintera made a name for himself with kinetic objects assembled from everyday materials, as well as thoughtful interventions in urban public space. His works are characterized by a mix of dark humor and social criticism.
With a sharp but playful sense of irony, Kintera comments on capitalism and mass consumerism. In his works, activism and absurdism go hand in hand. In 2015 the artist started working on Postnaturalia: a series of installations, sculptures and drawings deeply rooted in his obsession with the similarities between organic and artificial structures. According to Kintera, we live in an info-industrial copper age. He shows how we are constantly surrounded by copper wiring, spreading out like a finely woven grid: inside the walls of our homes, the smartphones in our hands and in the ground underneath our feet. This complex network of cables and wires shows remarkable similarities to the roots of plants, or rather the mycelial cords of fungi.
Kintera proposes a new, fictional breed of vegetation: how would plants grow and bloom from the discarded materials of our time? Whereas in his earlier sculptures Kintera often used elements such a movement, light, smoke and sound; the Postnaturalia works have a more subdued and introspective character. The artists appropriates contemporary materials for his sculptures, most prominently e-waste: discarded household appliances, obsolete computer hardware, motherboards, wires, circuits, connectors and screens. Usually hidden inside technological devices, these elements are not designed to be looked at: form purely follows function. But discovering how a copper coil inside a TV-set beautifully resembled a blossoming flower, Kintera realized that natural forms, however aesthetically pleasing, are also purely functional. And because scientists and developers closely observe organic structures when designing new systems, technology mimics nature.
Kintera’s sculptures combine a post-apocalyptic appearance with a decadent beauty. Radiating an atmosphere of melancholia, they also seem to contain a warning. Like so many of us, Kintera is concerned about the environment: can technology and nature co-exist?
About the artist
Having experienced the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Krištof Kintera makes work that is deeply rooted in the post-communist era. He studied at the Rijksacademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam and had solo exhibitions at Tinguely Museum, Basel, CH; Kunsthal Rotterdam, NL; Volta NY, US; La Station, Nice, FR; Gallery of the City of Prague, CZ and Maramotti Collection, Reggio Emilia, IT. Recent group exhibitions for which the artist was selected took place at Jewish Museum Berlin, DE; Martha Herford, DE; MOCAK, Krakow, PL; Manifesta Foundation, Amsterdam, NL; Museum Quartier, Vienna, AT; Watou, BE; Oerol, Terschelling, NL; Haus der Kunst, Munich, DE; Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, BE and Ambika P3, London, UK.