Pincushion (daily voodoo)

The series began with Pincushion – Father (Everyday Voodoo) created as early as in 1999. At the time a seemingly lone realization, it represented Černický’s response to a crisis in his family. A small figure representing his father played a role of a cathartic mechanism, to a certain extent materializing this problem. Other pincushions, which followed later, convey stories from the close vicinity of Jiří Černický’s apartment in the Prague district of Libeň. The patient record of people and banal situations may be perceived as his careful reconnaissance of the terrain, settling down in the given social environment and last but not least constructing the interconnecting story lines. This multi-time character or rather fluctuating dimensionality, typical of Černický, is to be found in the formal structure of the series Pincushions. The point of departure for each object is always a specific situation and its photographic record. Only then comes the laborious hand-production of textile miniatures.

Another essential moment in the process of building of the discursive framework for this artifact is the retrospective placement of individual shots and scenes into the set. It is done through secondary photographic documentation or by establishing new relations between the objects during their installation in the gallery space. The circle of reference is thus closed, but in the shape which enables or even invites the viewer’s participation in the interpretational framework of the work.