Artists: Alex Selmeci & Tomáš Kocka Jusko
Exhibition title: Retoucher’s abilities
Venue: Berlínskej Model, Prague, The Czech Republic
Date: July 8, 2020
Photography: František Svatoš / all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Berlínskej Model, Prague
Gatherers might also be interested in my collection of procedures, techniques, enhancements and requisites for revealing their consignments. It all started with the pleasure of opening, new and physical disobedience, to which I owe for hours of joy. Over time, small ingenious tools were replaced by sham collisions with branches and ferocious trees, deliberate clashes of wheels with sharp edges of stones, and an unexpectedly strong wind, always with the daring hope that the packaging would protect the matter being transported. Sometimes it didn’t work out. That’s when the retoucher´s abilities appeared inside me, to restore the aura of untouchability to damaged things or, on the contrary, refine natural wear and tear confirmed by their advanced age. The traces on the covers, arks and chests remained visible so that their coincidence matched with the alleged cause of their occurrence. The gradual increase in surveillance measures (introduced even without existing suspicions) went hand in hand with the decline of my interest in the manual opening of all scrupulously packed deliveries.
Instead, the developing of methods, which would get me to the core of the cargo, without disrupting it´s covering, has began.
