The Signature of Certain Things

Zbyněk Baladrán / Czech Republic / 2022 / World Premiere / 15 min.

synopsis

An audiovisual essay using a digitized, 8mm format that addresses questions of what the essence of contemporary art is and who it's made for. The film, which is divided into nine chapters, is based on practical experience and the works that are on display in the Gandy Gallery in Bratislava. It examines the relationship between the artwork as a whole and its features, signatures, and also institutional background.

“The works of art resemble the things around us, mysteriously reflecting reality. Institutions are also similar to the objects we know. They mirror the way we act.”

biography

Zbyněk Baladrán (* 1973) is a visual artist, curator, and exhibition architect. He studied art history at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University and then new media at AVA. He is the co-founder of Display, a space for contemporary art, which later after pairing up with the tranzit.cz project formed tranzitdisplay. Among his films presented by Ji.hlava IDFF include Theory of Work (2007), 40,000,000 (2010), Powerless Source of All Power (2018), Catastrophe (2019), In Praise of Dialectics (2021), and Social Murder (2021).