SELF-SPONSORED

SELF-SPONSORED
Patrik Pelikan

Exhibition duration: 26 June - 7 September 2025

Often it happens that the mason and the wall do not meet and remain lonely voices between which the work hangs. It's as if they're being directed by someone else and therefore can't see each other. Even if the mason is not always the head of the building, he still has his hands left. But what can the wall do? The construction in the gallery Olga attempts to bring the two actors closer together: she has the mason unroll the wall so that it can step out without being held up again, and yet not fall down. For both of them, their own stability will be at stake, as well as the opportunity to denounce what their role is suffering from.
The first phase of the construction will culminate on Wednesday 25 June with an opening day - an inspection day, during which a meeting will take place in the skeleton of the wall and over a construction adventure that will show the position of the builder and the wall being built not only in the process, but also from a distance. In the second phase, the plastered wall will then be confronted with the self-talk of the wall and the mason.

Third exhibition of the cycle Dr.Art for 2025 at the Olga Gallery builds on the themes of previous editions by focusing on the conditions in which art is created and by defining art as a possible tool for overcoming deep social crises.

CONSTRUCTION DIARY

On Monday I started to dismantle the mock-up walls for Jilska. They lasted in the workshop for almost a year, because I haven't done any business there since August. Now the room is cluttered with materials from the fall show (bags of clay, bamboo, fasteners) and more, the ones from the mock-ups, will be coming. At the same time, the perimeter walls have filled up with tests from even older events, so there is just enough time to sort and clear away the accumulation. I have a similar situation with construction logs and annotations for the last few years. Organizing is imminent just as spring is in full swing. All sorts of bushes are just starting to bloom, and I'm putting together notes for the AVU audition on my idea of how to function in the workshop: to what extent a dose of clutter is necessary for inspiration, and when overwhelm frustrates and hinders focus and new work.

So on Monday I will knock down the first smaller partition and knock the clay mortar out of the bamboo mat. On Wednesday, I'll dismantle the second one, which is more waste because it's covered in hardboard, and more work sifting out the mortar. I'll recycle what I can, but I'll get to dusting and pulling screws out of the battens on Friday. By then, I've already got a few sketches in my notebook of the first thing I thought I might do in the Olga gallery: unfolded partitions on an elliptical plan. I feel I should show the exhibition somehow from the inside, in process, and connected to the self-talk that echoes in my head as I work. But how to make the wall speak? The dates of the exhibition are from June to September, and it will be open only occasionally. Inside, however, it will be visible from the street through a large window, and this view can be counted on. But it's a long way to the Olga Gallery. Before filling it up again, I first have to sort out the space in my workshop and in my head. Then to build the model, etc.

In the meantime, my construction on Výtoni is delayed because I'm waiting for materials. Advantage for Olga, yet I don't get to work on the show easily. Sometimes I'm held up by orders, sometimes by the audition materials. Most of all, I'd like to mop the dusty floor in the workshop. I only get around to preparing a model when I think I can't get around anything. First I convert the measurements and cut the parts out of cardboard. Not to be short of excitement, Martin H. from Liberec Architecture calls me (we met six months ago in Jilská) and invites me to a workshop in Slavonice in May, which Rezek once offered, where architects get to touch traditional craftsmanship. It's tempting to make a projection between disciplines, after all Protoarchitecture was founded in Liberec. I'll meet you in a week and invite more. Now to finish the model.

I sketch mainly on the tram and my drawings have settled on the design of a wraparound partition. It's hard to come up with anything else. I'm monotonously repeating the volute floor plan and I'm annoyed by the square gallery layout because all the designs revolve around a circle. Time to compare ideas with the model. The rising height of the partition and the penetration of light should give dynamism to the crawl, only I can't draw that. What should happen during the crawl? Through the window or the inner entrance I see a room that is filled with a building - a separate partition. I enter it and watch the wall receding. As I walk, the light diminishes, the passage is tight and high into the ceiling. In such a shell, one would like to say that the walls have surrounded me. Yet it's still the same partition, only it has two sides: a convex one that points towards the gallery walls and a bulging one that turns away and guides me inside the tangle. One stream, two banks. Opposite an erosion with sediments and inside a stagnant pool.

I'm thinking of Olga, it's just that the events of the last month haven't allowed me to continue with the installation. I was finishing the construction on Výtoni, followed by the promised workshop of clay plasters in Slavonice, then immediately to pair up in Třeboca and a while later to dig the facade in Činěvsi. In the meantime, a long preparation for the audition at AVU. There was neither time for Olga nor for self-talk. At most, I was on the tram reading and editing the latest construction diaries.

Finally auditioned yesterday, workshop today. I would build or paint something right away, but my intuition holds me back and I draw spirals on the wall instead. Then, on the same scale, I try a curled cable on the floor below to make a floor plan of the partition. The only thing I can grasp in my planning is the limiting width of the passage between the walls. My guess is that in a space narrower than half a metre, I wouldn't climb four metres to the ceiling. I also build a scale model of the rafters from leftover bamboo and climb back and forth with it in the floor plan, trusting that the ascension will show me what the wrapping of the partition should look like. Again, only the limits come to light: build so that the builder can still fit the structure.

It's raining any minute now and I'm getting stressed from the anticipation of the installation. I'm distracted and have trouble writing a single email in the morning. It keeps me so busy that I don't go to the workshop. I don't really know what I'm doing. After lunch, I take a bath, go outside and pick a bag of elderflowers. In the afternoon I'm on the phone with Dita, when I outline my plan to build a wraparound partition, let the wall do the talking, and give the builder a voice. I suggest the title, Self-contained, and also the idea of conceiving the opening as a control day: a meeting on the site inside the skeleton of the wall, where research for my dissertation could also take place. Dita agrees; I've already started to write the annotation.

I can't do much more with the model in the workshop, so I draw a plan of the inner wrap, put the battens together and start building the wall frame. I'd prefer not to tie the upright uprights together with any spars and try to join them with bamboo or sololite only. But who knows what will happen when I cut the upright uprights that anchor the wall. Won't the bent bamboo or sololite beat stretch the wall so much that it will collapse? I measure the concern about tension against the idea of letting the wall stand on its own but not collapse.

A week to installation, I'm anxiously counting down the days. In the workshop, the construction is waiting, just to start beating it with bamboo mats. Today, however, I'm just tying the stands horizontally with individual straws while inflating the grid so the mats don't fall when unrolled. I got a new saw this morning and all morning instead of pounding, I cut wedges from the waste wood. The saw cuts towards me, so I want to get a reverse shot before the action.

I'm counting every hour. There's a lot of work involved in beating up old mats: pulling out staples, watering broken straws, etc. I can only do half the construction in a day.

My head is clouded with a hangover. I'll finish beating the mats and leave the inside for tomorrow. I want it smooth and flat, so I'm going to cover it with hardboard. I'd have to plaster the sketch, but I don't have time and I'm sorry about the material. How the wall will hold up and how the plaster will work or crack will be an adventure that I will evaluate in Olga.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for the facade in Chineves, so today is the last chance to try something before installation. I'm redoing and photographing the model for the sake of the invitation, and instead of the sololite backfill I'm hastily beating the inside of the partition with bamboo stalks. I want to save time and material. Then I hastily undercut half of the uprights and my surprise is replaced by anger at how baggy the wall is. I fumble and console myself that this is an experiment. Next time, I need to stagger the undercutting and, more importantly, gauge how the wall will behave when it's beaten with sololite and weighted down with clay. I don't have it down and I can't do the math. I put stability at risk and recall a rumor about the construction of the vault at Charles when the masons didn't believe the vault would hold, refused to demolish the scaffolding, and the builder had to set it on fire. You couldn't see through the smoke and as the burning scaffolding fell, he stopped believing in the vault and ran to drown himself in the Vltava River. But the vault survived and outlived the builder and the masons.