Too Loose
To Lose It
2024
2024
Place
Galerie u Betlémské Kaple, Prague
Curator
Martina Mrázová
Guest artist
Václav Stratil
Kotrč creates his own arsenal of symbols that allow him to think about the world without unnecessary moralizing, with a sense of humor and hyperbole. The bearers of his stories are the fairy-tale characters of the Care Bears animated series, who brought a sense of security and safety to children's bedrooms in the 1990s. In their magical stories, the cuddly friends always manage to defeat evil together, in Kotrč's paintings and objects the bears often find themselves in situations that are clearly not very pleasant for them. In their cloud kingdom, they suddenly experience states of melancholy, fatigue, boredom, depression, danger, or helplessness over their loss of control. The seemingly banal scenes reflect in a light-hearted way our situation in a world where values such as honesty, kindness, and naivety are being pushed out by cynical consumerism with its empty advertising slogans.
The author doesn’t feel compelled to respond to the world’s negative aspects with "dark" or heavy art. Instead, he uses his works to remind us that, amidst the fleeting glimpses of colored light, there remains something beautiful and pure – something we can still hold onto.
By using motifs from cartoons, Kotrč also defines himself against the over-intellectualized discourse of contemporary art, which sometimes takes itself too seriously. Instead of lacing his works with complex concepts, he turns to his own intuition and artistic sensibility with confidence.
As a guest artist, Václav Stratil intervened in the exhibition. His artistic approach could be interpreted in close relationship with the title of the show. Although Stratil's intervention – concerned primarily with the place where the gallery is located – was partly self-referential and might even seem random, it significantly influenced the exhibition's overall composition.