Alena Kotzmannová 

„Enough of the original geniuses! Let us repeat ourselves unceasingly!“ A. L.

“The house should be mute on the outsider and re-veal all of its rimes on the interior.“ A. L.

„At present we demand from a chair not only that we may rest while sitting on it, but moreover that we may become rested quickly while sitting on it. Time is money.“ A. L.

„I force the owners of the flat to live in the entire flat, not only in the kitchen.“ A. L.

"I do not play with the facade, I do not live there.” A .L.

One of the crucial parts of the exhibition project framed by the complex of topics related to Adolf Loos’ work in Pilsen was naturally also the question of further employment of his legacy in a space of contemporary art. In this level of thought, the artistic research focused on more than historically conditioned architectural concepts or realizations of direct interpretation of individual author’s, set in their individual systems of expression or in the key course of development of contemporary artwork. Apart from excursions of Loos’ interiors and the photographic documentation of their details, Alena Kotzmannová focused on the study of theoretical texts, or rather this author emotional maniphests, mostly published during the first decades of the 20th century. Seven interconnected installations named LOOST, placed in the bays between individual naves of Masné krámy, consists of black and white images of an intimate format, school notebooks and typized lamps producted by the global company IKEA. Thoroughly chosen quotations reflect not only Loos’ architectural conception, but also an uncompromising criticism of the European society, heading towards a decline, which was later represented mainly by two world war conflicts and the rise of totalitarian regimes. Kotzmannová transcribes these quotes in her own hand and present them to the audience in open notebooks, seemingly inviting them to continue rewriting them. To focus, to read and to repeat the read, focus on parts of a whole, connect the text with an image and understand their conjoint meaning. That is the author’s, and hopefully also our inclosure – defense against in the pressure of visual trash, which attacks the society and each individual in the virtual reality of communicational and informative media, to prevent us from understanding ourselves, the others and the world around us.

Michal Koleček, curator (from the text of the catalogue Soulful Interiors)