Zaostalí

The gradual weakening and then the breakup of the communist regime in the second half of the 1980s was favourable for many half-official as well as the (still) unofficial artistic activities, among which belonged especially the series of Konfrontace (Confrontations). In 1987 the Federation of Czechoslovak Fine Artists issued an appeal for the formation of artistic groups, as a result of which a large number of kindred artists’ groups started to originate, such as the youngest (Tvrdohlaví) (Headstrong) as well as middle generation (12/15 Pozdě ale přece) (12/5 Better Late Than Never).

One of such groupings was formed by four very different creative personalities: Hugo Demartini (*1931), Pavel Nešleha (*1937), Bedřich Dlouhý (*1932) and Zdeněk Beran (*1937) who gave themselves the provocative and self-ironic name Zaostalí  (Primitive) because of their attitude to go against fashion trends.

Their first more significant collective event was their collective installation at the unofficial exhibition Forum 88 organized by Jiří Sozanský in the area of the slaughterhouse in the Prague quarter of Holešovice: the artists knowingly opposed the dangerous stereotype of allotted exhibition space to individual artists [see Nešleha, Pavel. K Zaostalým krok za krokem…, in: Wittlich, Petr (ed.). Zaostalí forever, Praha: Gallery, 2007, p. 73] and they spontaneously and randomly piled their art work on a pile, which they called Hromada (The Pile).

Pavel Nešleha addresses the question of common foundations and shared opinions: “Our activity now has solid shape and goal. Creating a collective monumental installation provided us with the desire to say something fundamental about us, as well as about the situation of this time. We wanted to build a strong, sensually charged form, carrying the news about the need to surpass time limits of individual eras, opposing the present vastness and spiritlessness. […] We realized that in the background there was a certain form of reaction to judging the value of art through momentary topicality […], as well as the insistency on European cultural tradition and rejecting totemistic mythologies, resulting in genetically unfounded and artificially imported forms in our environment. That is also why our work partially projected citations of Baroque, Realistic and Romantic painting arising from personal programs based on life and artistic experience.” [see ibid, pp. 73-75].  It was precisely the return to local art and staying away from the “hundred times repeated citations of non-European cultures” [see Beran, Zdeněk. Trochu světla k temné historii vzniku skupiny Zaostalí, in:  Wittlich, Petr (ed.). Zaostalí forever, Praha: Gallery, 2007, pp. 75] that became the connecting element of such different artists that the members of the group Zaostalí were. Two more members joined the group one year after it was founded: music composer Jan Klusák (*1934) and architect Karel Kouba (*1929).

The subsequent exhibition planned for the spring of 1990 in Lidový dům never took place; several pieces of artwork were presented at the intimate exhibition in Nová síň, while larger pieces were exhibited at the parallel exhibition Praha – Paříž, Dialog ´90 in Gallery Mánes in Prague.

At the exhibition Situace ´92, also in Gallery Mánes, the artists once again created the installation Hromada (The Pile) in which in addition to the demonstration of the division of time and postmodern plurality, there was an optical metaphor expressing the disillusionment from information jumble and the vainness of art [see ibid, p. 75]

For a long time this exhibition was the last one of the group Zaostalí until the group retrospective exhibition that took place in the Prague City Gallery in 2007 with Petr Wittlich as the curator.

2007
Zaostalí forever, GHMP – Městská knihovna, Praha 1992
Situace ´92, Mánes, Praha 1990
Nová síň, Praha Praha – Paříž: Dialog ´90, Mánes, Praha 1988
Forum 88, jatka Holešovice, Praha

2007
Machalický, Jiří. Zaostalí nejsou zaostalí, Lidové noviny, 2007, roč. 20, č. 261, s. IV Tetiva, Vlastimil. Zaostalí, Ateliér, 2007, roč. 20, č. 22, s. 16. Wagner, Radan. Jsou Zaostalí skutečně zaostalí?, A2, 2007, roč. 3, č. 45, s. 8. Frajtová, Marie. Zaostalí for ever, Instinkt, 2007, roč. 6, č. 45, s. 69. Kopáč, Radim. Tihle Zaostalí nezaostali, MF Dnes, 2007, roč. 18, č. 245, s. S C/10. Křížová, Kristýna. Zaostalí představují svá progresívní díla, Právo, 2007, roč. 17, č. 227, s. 17. Juříková, Magdalena. Zvěčnění hromady, Art&Antiques, 2007, roč. 5, č. 11, s. 69.