If you see a puma, don’t smoke. Art is in order Václav Girsa’s second career. Although the content of his often expressive work is unique, the influence of his AVU professors, of Vladimír Skrepl and Jiří Kovanda, can be detected. Everything depicted had to first somehow enter the artist’s life, including various objects that he didn’t specifically seek, but just happens upon and, in relation to the event, adds them to his pictures. Art’s close link to life is essential for the creation of a work of art and the reason for his existence. This leads to a certain directness of content, which does not mean, however, that the artist worked with spur-of-the-moment ideas, but that he intentionally avoids a rational complication of the subject.
Girsa’s work has several parallel lines and approaches, and even though some themes are repeated, it is not a result of an exhaustion of ideas but shows rather the development of motifs in time. A diversity of treatment of themes, of thematic circles and materials is typical of his development. What remains is an expressiveness that is not so much an aesthetic quality as an attempt at a more direct line of communication with the viewer; it also has a Dadaistic base to it. Some of his works are provocative and even playfully infantile; others take on the matter of art’s safety. Artists enjoy an immunity that is sufficient to enable them to attempt repeated crossings of reached borders. But even viewers move in the parallel world of the safe demonstration of things and phenomena, in a controlled environment. Girsa is interested in a situation in which the responsibility of the artist, curator and institution is transferred to the viewer. Subject matters range from the metal rock concerts to cult comic heroes, demons, ghosts, animals, landscapes, something like still-lifes and travel logs to strangely lyrical motifs and geometrical abstraction.
He likes to work with various inter-stages – from the domination of the picture to the object and installation. Some canvases include not only applied objects and infringe on the space, but they also use sound, taste and lighting effects. Girsa trusts his instincts and applies irony to conceptual approaches through their literal use. For instance, in his university thesis that he made based on the week-long stay of several female artists in his flat and studio, each series was devoted to a shared experience with each, developed into portrait form.
The direct transcription of past reality through depersonalization from the carrier becomes fiction and a code. Even though the picture hangs on the wall, the final artefact is not really final. It strives for continuity of the experience and for a start to the viewer-artist cooperation. The banal interactivity and insertion of objects to pictures serves to emphasize for Girsa the painting’s un-imitative essence. In this he also exhibits what may be called, at the risk of exaggeration, the magical component. It’s about making the viewer experience something that would not happen under normal circumstances. Girsa travels a lot. Records and other provocation are similarly described as unreal. The combination of unexpectedly direct communication and an exaggerated illustrativeness leads to confusion and prevents a firm position from being taken. Infantilism of expression is a way to destroy the conscious ego. Nothing is too much for him. If he needs for some reason to depict a gigantic phallus, he’ll do it. He doesn’t worry about the consequences of interpretation. Literality is not in his case an inability, but a tool.
