Miloš Šejn

“Naturally, I knew the artworks of those people. Visually, I couldn’t relate to it much, perhaps with the exception of František Skála and Petr Nikl. Róna’s work with figurativeness was not my cup of tea because it contradicted what I was heading towards. Furthermore, at that time the attempt to make an economic breakthrough smelled of a nod to the regime. I am not joking now at all. In retrospect, some of those people’s characters were confirmed by their later statements. Such as in the memories of Vladimír Körner who likes to tell the story about him being the first who got fired by Václav Marhoul from the Barrandov Film Studios for uselessness. One mustn’t forget that Václav Marhoul was practically the head of the group. So this is not at all funny. And the way some of the members of the group presented themselves – Jiří David above all – it’s… I’d rather not get into detail here.”

“It happened sometime around sixth or seventh grade. I somewhat got into the biology study room in our room and there I found an incredible thing. I know exactly what it is today – it is called Kněžourek’s Big Atlas of Birds. It is composed of two books which I actually found only much later. But the main part of this art piece are lithographic color printing tables of all European birds, including those species which only rarely fly to our country. I was so fascinated by it that I began creating my own atlas. I made some sort of duplicates of those tables, retaining the original dimensions. I would secretly let myself get locked in that study room during lessons, and draw small sketches of birds which I would then arrange together at home. They were virtually just pencil-written notes and since many birds have a very complicated systems of coloration, those are sketches in which various parts of the birds’ bodies include written descriptions on the specific color tones. At present, I see these as incredible things on the border of visual poetry.”

“First, I abolished the traditional idea of capturing landscapes by either using one’s memory or, being out in plein air, having a canvas on the stand and capturing whatever one sees in front of him. My fundamental gesture included abolishing the stand. The canvas lost its frame, it was put down on the ground and the depiction of the landscape became a sort of a map of my relationship to the place. It was about me being present there and somehow seizing the place. Moreover, I progressively realized the importance of me being there, of my body. That relationship between the body and the place. In some of my later works I then worked with the body on purpose and in some other works I worked on purpose with the place. And since at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s I adopted new media, I eventually reached an idea of something total which I call the transparent body.”