Innsbruck. The communicative and social implications of architecture are a key reference point for Heidrun Holzfeind and Katerina Šedá. For both artists, the genesis of their works involves extensive on-the-spot research. However, their conceptual strategies differ. In her work »MEXICO 68«, which has kept on evolving since its inception in 2005 in Mexico City, Heidrun Holzfeind (born 1972) develops a canon of documentary methods enhanced by subjective elements. In her project »Každej pes, jiná ves« (literally: »A different village for every dog«, 2007) Katerina Šedá (born 1977) attempts to mitigate the anonymity of Nová Líšen, the large high-rise estate on the outskirts of Brno where she grew up, through a subjective intervention using structures immanent to the system. In »C.U.«, 2006, Holzfeind uses a double projection with photographs to portray the campus of UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), designed by architects Mario Pani and Enrique del Moral between 1950–1952 under the aegis of Carlos Lazo and which was also the starting point for the student protests in July 1968. The focus is on the overall design, the architectonic details of the exterior and interior, as well as the ageing process of the modernist architecture with its structures that have in some places become desolate, because they are now devoid of any function. The subjective gaze settles over and over again on details, interspersed with isolated shots that recall the cool objective gaze of architectural photographs. The modern ensemble of buildings from the post-revolutionary era, declared by UNESCO in 2007 to be »one of the most important icons in architecture and urban planning in the whole of Latin America«, was built by the most influential architects of the day. The contribution by Luis Barragán, an advocate of Le Corbusier’s harmonising aesthetic, was limited to a few aspects of the design for the garden. The Bauhaus tradition and the principles of the International Style – often mediated through periods of study in Europe and through the European architects who emigrated to Latin America during the Second World War – are combined with indigenous elements and Mexican popular art. These traditional references are found not so much in the architectonic sphere as in the figurative murals, mosaics and the 3D design features. The campus served as a progressive prestigious object for the dictatorial PRI, which was in power for over 30 years in the single-party state. The visual stocktaking moved across an unbounded terrain, and its dialectic did not depend upon re-creating the kind of context relevant to architectural history, but instead set this all in relation to the student movement#. In the second part of the work, »Mexico 68«, 2007, eight out of 19 video interviews with individuals formerly involved in the protests were shown. The different perspectives create a complex picture of the politically heterogeneous background of the activities, the influence of international political movements and of the general strategies of the movement, which spread over the course of the summer to most of the colleges and universities in Mexico. Waves of arrests of activists unleashed massive protests: calls for democratisation and the release of political prisoners went hand-in-hand with proclamations of solidarity with the revolution in Cuba. The situation was exacerbated by the imminent opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in the C.U. stadium. On 2nd October the police and military killed and injured an indefinite number of victims by unleashing a massacre during a rally on»Three Cultures« square. Photographs show Lecumberri Prison, organised as a panopticum; many intellectuals were detained here for up to three years and after being taken out of service as a prison in 1980 the building served as Mexico’s national archive. The international media paid almost no attention to the events: in a show-case next to the information material about the Olympic Games, an edition of »Paris Match« is on display: the cover depicts a corpse surrounded by a group of people under the headline »Sang sur Mexico. Jeux en crise« (»Blood over Mexico. Games in crisis«). The archives and numerous photographs on display reveal that the events were recorded mainly by people directly involved in what was going on. Most of the documents come from the archive of »Comité 68«, which is still involved in investigating what happened. In 1972 film students produced a comprehensive documentary record on film: »El Grito: Mexico 1968«. After this defeat, the process of democratisation got going very slowly. The charges brought in 2006 against former Interior Minister Echeverría, who was responsible for the massacre and later became president, were dismissed due to the statute of limitations. In the small-scale pencil-drawn series »Their truth is not ours«, the artist reproduces some of the demonstrators’ slogans and motifs. Whilst this subjective gesture does not open up any new insights through repetition, the biomorphous papier-mâché objects, which are reminiscent of Hans Arp and Friedrich Kiesler and assume shapes inspired by José Chávez Morades’ mural in the Faculty of Chemistry, reflect a codified universalism that references a cultural transfer. At the same time it hints at society’s shifting relationship to nature.
The subjective way in which the artist works through the documentation, comprised primarily of photos, film and interviews, makes it possible to counteract mythologizing of the events. Katerina Šedá conducts her interventions, which engage with social structures, using artistic means outside art institutions. The works often emerge as the fruit of her personal involvement. In »Každej pes, jiná ves«, presented as an installation taking up an entire room, Katerina Šedá develops a communication project by picking up on the uniform structures of Socialist pre-fabricated high-rise housing estate, where the only change the world of officialdom has introduced involved repainting the facades in pastel tones. A thousand shirts were printed with the coloured pattern of the pre-fabricated high rises and dispatched according to a system computing the largest possible distance between the sender and the recipient. The idea was that a symbolic community would be created when people wore the shirts. However, the criticism and incomprehension apparent in the written reactions of the people living there reveal how much the concept remains stuck in a schematic approach that does not do justice to the complex circumstances of everyday life. In formal terms though the diagrams and drawings for the project take on a life of their own with sometimes surreal – and indeed captivating - traits. »Je to jedno« (»What difference does it make«, 2005–2007), the project developed for her grandmother, Jana Šedá, testifies to a great capacity for empathy. Šedá managed to get her grandmother, who had become indifferent to everything after retiring, to become actively involved in her project. The long interview shows how the grandmother’s memories were reawakened through her granddaughter’s interest in the events of her life. Her job in an ironmonger’s was the starting point for the extensive series of drawings in which Jana Šedá sketches over 650 articles from memory and draws up the price list to go with them. Katerina Šedá uses simple means to give a theatrical twist to the installation in memory of her grandmother, who died in 2007: in the middle of the room, surrounded by questionnaires and drawings on the walls, is a kitchen table covered with a flowery tablecloth and with the books about the project lying on it. In the video we see the grandmother drawing at this table. Šedá devises three series of questionnaires in »Vnucka« (»Granddaughter«, 2006–2007), which she worked through with her grandmother in the course of a year. The selection from these on display here makes clear how much the memories that are stirred up can change experience of the present without fundamentally changing how life is. The open methodological approach of these projects, which Šedá developed in direct personal cooperation in the light of changes in her immediate environment, proved productive, whilst it transpires that the pre-defined artificiality in »Každej pes, jiná ves« is more of an obstacle to the communication process.
Translated by Helen Ferguson