PROGRAM / Vernisáž výstavy LÁVKA

EN/
History ⁄ creation of Reinhold Zisser's project LÁVKA:

The beginning of what is the basis for this project is the installation LÁVKA by the Czech artist Martin Zeta. LÁVKA was the central object of his installation at the Brno House of Arts, which opened in February 2020 just days before the first wave of lockdown hit the Czech Republic and the whole of Europe. In his solo exhibition, Martin Zet reflected on his father's sculptural work and asked questions about the interconnectedness of spaces, artworks and their contexts, drawing on this personal reference to the work of his father, himself an important sculptor.

In this exhibition, the 30-metre-long LÁVKA Bridge was the main link between all these contexts, and the visitor to the exhibition could choose whether to walk on the floor or change perspective by choosing to walk on the bridge, which ran the entire main floor of the Art House exhibition space. I was just beginning my artist residency at the Art House when I came across this installation and met Martin Zet.

From this moment on, our project began, which led to the continued cooperation with LÁVKA. Less than half a year later, in the summer of 2020, the installation LÁVKA was transferred from the Brno House of Arts to the Vienna Seestadt, where it took place as part of my meta-art programme Notgalerie, entitled "I can't bear to be left alone". In the next step, a year later, in 2021, we dismantled half of the LAVA again in Seestadt and brought it back to Brno and exhibited it in the park behind the Art House. To create the artwork, we invited the Czech artist David Přílučík, who participated in both ends of the LÁVKA in Vienna and Brno at the same time. After the LAVA had to be dismantled at the House of Arts, it was put in INDUSTRA's warehouse for more than two years. During this time, the installation was still installed in Seestadt and offered a glimpse of the ongoing construction of this satellite city being built in the northeast of Vienna.

This year, just as we began to prepare the structure of the project you are reading about, a huge act of vandalism occurred when an unknown group of people (or individual) destroyed the LÁVKA in Seestadt in one night. They tore out major parts and then burned them in a huge fire.

Within our current project we are rebuilding the existing half of the LÁVKA in the area of Nová Zbrojovka, in front of the INDUSTRA building. In Seestadt, Vienna, we are using the remaining parts that have not been completely burnt to coal to create a building that we want to call LÁVKA gate. The artworks of a trio of contemporary Czech artists presenting themselves in the LÁVKA environment reflect the interrelationship between the two bridges and the important element of collaboration and initiative in contemporary art.