The above statement can be discussed at his exhibition at the Prague contemporary art center DOX How Can I Help You? (lasts until Aug. 20) convince literally in your own skin. Together with curator Michaela Šilpochová, he divided the exhibition into separate sections over several floors. Each of them can be symbolically named with some all-encompassing term.
We can call the first a multimedia cabinet. In addition to the visual component, Kintera also incorporates a musical component. When we stand in the center of the hall, all components affect our senses at once, techno music, intense lights and visual artefacts. There are Czech and English inscriptions on it, which may act as a certain clue to understand what’s on display.
The red fire extinguisher with the words “Humility” is actually such an opening. While a white area with deer antlers and English writing that can be translated as “I don’t want to be human” (or “I don’t want to be human”) acts as the closing presentation in this microcosm.
The second hall could be called the Residential Seminar with a bit of exaggeration. In the corridor that opens to the interior, a framed sign “No one owns anything” shines. This somewhat nihilistic statement is slightly eroded by a small, comfortable room with two old-fashioned chairs found in a corner. If one sits in it, one can meditate for hours between conquests of Kinter’s paintings.
The strongest experience is on the top floor. This is Kinter heaven. A long flight of stairs led up to it, and with every step climbed, another part of the deity came into view. God of consumerism, negative emotions and fear of the modern world. The author revealed it with a pyramid of all kinds of containers, tubes and cans, where he wrote the names of various emotions that gripped a person who was thrown into this world.
The words “Cit” glow on the barrel in the foreground. It’s as if Kintera wants to embody the text of Jiří Dědeček Twenty blankets of souls. “I want to buy twenty blankets of souls, a few pieces of truth, a pint of conscience… so give me a crown of faith, an eighth of feelings, a bottle of hope,” it read. And suddenly the visitor was attacked from all sides by other signs, and perhaps he could ask the heavenly oiler to fill him with the required amount. But then he returns to earth and finds that he must fight evil and virtue for himself.
The only problem with Kinter’s pieces is that they require a large amount of space. In a cramped apartment in a block of flats, his work wouldn’t speak as much as it does in the interior of a sprawling DOX gallery.
Kristof Kintera likes the combination of musical and visual components.
Kristof Kintera at the opening
Kristof Kintera also risks comfort with an armchair
Krištof Kintera in the center, curator M. Šilpochová on the left, gfalerie director Leoš Válka on the right
Kristof Kintera uses the language of postmodern art
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