Wind in the Organ

The sound of the pipe organ wafting through the stony silence of the cathedral, similar to a ray of light penetrating the one-hundred-thousand-year-old darkness of a cave through a crevice.

 Mountain peaks reflecting off a lake's surface, stock-still like a black mirror.

 Fans of light cutting through the interior of the St. Vitus Cathedral through the eyes of Josef Sudek.

 Wind frolicking in the pipes of the organ.

The second joint exhibition of Tereza Štětinová a Lucia Papčová intensifies their subtle dialogue, this time around playing out within the specific space of Josef Sudek's studio. The exhibition Wind in the Organ responds to this context more subconsciously than intentionally, and therefore perhaps convincingly as well. Papčová and Štětinová's artwork interacts with the intimate studio non-invasively yet dynamically: the straightforwardness and a certain simplicity, purity of their artistic gesture is in harmony with Sudek's legacy.

Both artists concern themselves with nature especially, with simple motifs and pure materials and techniques. Their artworks though do not lack elaborate detail and sureness in terms of the artists having mastered the respective techniques. Mirroring becomes a recurrent creative principle at work here at several levels – in the individual works of art as well as spanning across the artists' oeuvre. Tereza's delicate objects and Lucia's delicate analog images, almost elusive to the eye, have the ability to inject a certain grandeur into this space, one that can remind us of the indisputable reverence that Sudek's still-life photographs radiated.

Lucia's new video adds an articulated spiritual dimension to the exhibition. Both artists invite us symbolically to go beneath the surface, into the deep – to the core of this landscape and our own selves. They offer us a place of composure, where the booming sound of the organ reverberates in the composition of the verticals of the silk fabric, where softness meets firmness and light meets darkness, where nature itself is a temple and the source of inspiration and (self-)discovery.

Tereza Jindrová