The concept of the historically focused collection exhibition How to Collect Art: the Karel Tutsch Story will be expanded by a series of exhibitions of the youngest generation of artists, current students or graduates from art school studios. In this way, the curators will revive Tutsch's basic strategy of discovering and presenting the works of previously unknown artists in a new context. Gallery Na bidýlku II will thus become a laboratory for new approaches to the traditional medium of painting and installation, whose transformations Tutsch has followed and supported for several decades.
With Žuži, the sculptor Lucie Bečvářová presents works accentuating ideas of collaboration and activism within contemporary art. Using a wide range of artistic techniques, she reflects on complex social, political, and environmental issues, solutions to which will determine the future of our increasingly fragmented society, in which it is difficult to find unifying values.
The exhibition shows the artist’s work within the broader context through upcycled objects, sculptures made from dough, and traditional sculptures in the form of site-specific installations. It also highlights the importance of participation between individuals and communities. Bečvářová works with references to politics, the current state of art, global crises, excluded localities, consumerism, and unequal gender-based access to opportunities, among other themes. Besides commenting on contemporary social issues, she also creates a space for constructive dialogue while openly exploring the potential of art: how it can serve as a tool for activist change and how it can be used to motivate audiences to engage in individual and collective action.
Lucie Bečvářová first collaborated with GMU while working on her graduate project, in which she focused on creating frames for paintings by various artists that she received from a number of different sources. One of these paintings was Milena Šimková-Elgrová’s Distant Lands (1920–1935) from the GMU collection, for which Bečvářová fashioned a frame titled Lioness (2024). In this artistic project, which has been included in the exhibition, the frames are more than just physical objects; they are conceptual tools that bring the individual works of art together and offer a new perspective on the paintings as such.
With its long and fascinating history, the frame is the most compelling symbol of separation (or connection) in the field of art. It carries numerous meanings, usually depending on the context in which it is used. Traditionally, the frame serves to define the space of the painting, to separate it from the surrounding world. At the same time, it protects the painting from damage while also suggesting that it is exceptional, separate from ordinary reality. In some cases, it acts as a commentary on the painting and its content. It underlines or questions the meaning of the image, often expressing the relationship between the image and what is separated from the image (by the frame). Sometimes it plays a powerfully symbolic role or relates to themes of social demarcation, identity, and boundaries. The frame can thus represent an element that creates boundaries while simultaneously inviting us to cross them.
With her frames for paintings by various artists, Bečvářová has created a bridge that connects these artistic individuals with their creations to produce a unified whole. This act of symbolic collaboration between disparate artworks, paintings, and seemingly superfluous, worn, or recycled objects within a single installation is a manifesto of mutual support and of accepting diverse perspectives within the shared space of art and lived reality.
Through her interactive installation, which allows people in need to use the otherwise sterile gallery setting for personal cleansing (washing their clothes), Bečvářová invites us to consider how art as a collective force can promote social change, which tools can be used to actively respond to the challenges of the contemporary world, and what role artists play in this process.
