BOOK REVIEW: PAVEL BUCHLER- IDLE THOUGHTS
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| The Book in its GLORY |
"All I remember is the handwriting going on for pages and pages... in its way it was perfect."
A closing remark by the artist Pavel Buchler on the reasoning behind why he has chosen to replicate the fading memories of his father, within his art work. The art work can be seen as a very heart felt love letter to his deceased father, as well as the influence he has bestowed within Buchler now as he is an adult. Whether it can be seen as open letter to his father or a work based upon the discovery of his failed novel in his youth, Butchler has used this as a catalyst to help him create multiple works of art based around the idea of human ideas as well as the way we write to express these interests of ours.
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| Pavel Bulcher in discussion of his work |
Pavel Buchler was born behind the "Iron Curtain" in Prague in 1952, around the time of the infamous 'Slansky Trail', where he would live and worked until the early 1980's. As a struggling artist he drew inspiration from a variety of sources: including his heritage, but mostly from the society and the world around him at time, especially living and breathing under a very strict Communist rule (strongly shown in his other works). Learning from this he created multiple works of art and sculptures to both stress and parody his life under this all seeing eye. However, he has also turned his hand into teaching and lectures about approaches to art on the whole as well as his own work. Currently he is a professor at Manchester University on the MA Fine Art course.
Still to this day he is a strong a prominent figure on the intentional art scene in more ways than one.
Moving on to the exhibition put on by the recently re-built and updated Withworth Gallery in the student heart of the city of Manchester, I can not say I ever entered the gallery prior to it being updated but pictures have help me to illustrate the changes that have taken place over its closure. Now the gallery has a wide variety of different form of art work from sculptures to drawings, film and other art based works from multiple foreign and home grown talent.
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| Idle Thoughts (Diary 2010-2011) |
As shown above, you can see the level of detail Buchler adds to these pieces; where each individual scrape and flick of the pen is perfectly added to cover up any remaining white paper cushioned below. The main interest in us human's is what lies behind all that blue blur. What was written moments before? Its a bizarre take on what the human mind can develop and structure but, also how in time all of our ideas grow from seeds and fruit the understanding of who or what we would like to achieve. This collection of art is no different; with the thought of time taking president which is duplicated with the periods of expanse it took to complete the collection. From the inception of his discovery to the formation of the works all of this took time, like his father's novel did.
In others forms of works in the series, entitled 'a year with a dead Biro' we see Buchler create invisible works of prose left as a ghostly outline on the page. This includes a diary of notes taken from the same year which has his thoughts and feelings embossed with the fibers of the paper itself. An all white swan song of his inner mind workings, which is too faint for us to see and feel. Yet, symbolically powerful for us viewers to feel a sense of lost and hope all juxtaposed in one. What was written?
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| Few of the Pieces on show |
Overall, a excellent messy insight into the world of failed human notions. Prior on the surface it may seem like an explosion at a pen factory; it deals more with the connection and love with for his father as he reminisces about his childhood and his amazement that his father could have it in him to create a novel in general.
THURSTON
INSTAGRAM
TUMBLR
