The Marketplace of Art
series of 106 paintings, various sizes, acrylic, canvas, print on vinyl, 2023
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A,C,D
1-4/4, 1-10/10, 1-10/10
1703.49, 0908.50, 0908.50
Manual for an Artwork Expressive of Our Era (or the philosophy of our age, following A. Gramsci)
Zbyněk Baladrán
Acrylic on canvas and UV print on vinyl
50 x 70 cm, 75 x 110 cm, 40 x 50 cm, 40 x 30 cm, 30 x 40 cm
2023
1. The medium must be properly accessible and conformist.
2. The medium must be conventional while remaining mysterious.
3. Its formal features can be decadent, the medium will provide them with pomp.
4. One must always declare that it is, in fact, an artwork.
5. The modus operandi is based in a staunch individualism. The viewer ought to have ample opportunity for such identification to take place.
6. The viewer should believe that they are becoming part of something larger, something which transcends them.
7. The work should leave space for defiant ideas. (however much the status quo allows)
8. Contemplation should in no way cancel out commodification.
The extended caption for the painting is in English, the lingua franca of the art world. The author’s mother tongue is present only on the painting’s reverse side as a sign of their subjection to a higher order, but also expressing care towards local art consumers.
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B
1-12/12
1504.49
An Artwork Expressive of Our Era (or the philosophy of our age, following A. Gramsci)
Zbyněk Baladrán
Acrylic on canvas and UV print on vinyl
25 × 30 cm
2023
This painting is made for immediate consumption. The canvas was purchased at the Lidl supermarket chain. Their company policy ensures quality and proclaims genuine interest in both their customers and employees. All their prices are fair. The painting’s theme is serious, very important for our liberal society. It signifies freedom and reminds us of where we live, as well as what and where we ought to worship.
The extended caption for the painting is in English, the lingua franca of the art world. The author’s mother tongue is present only on the painting’s reverse side as a sign of their subjection to a higher order, but also expressing care towards local art consumers.
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E
1-10/10
0408.50
The Lesson of Art I.
Zbyněk Baladrán
Acrylic on canvas and UV print on vinyl
40 × 50 cm
2023
What exactly do these paintings depict? Their existence illustrates a contradiction: is culture an ideological product of capitalism or rather its critical alternative? If a product of capitalist culture, then its role is to conceal and make opaque its own essential commodification and compensate its own social pathologies.
The alternative rather assumes that art critiques the capitalist colonization of social life, creating spheres outside of capital. Such exceptions can survive unnoticed on the periphery of capitalism, but it should not disqualify their critical significance. Art’s resistance against its own commodification is thus maintained as a lament.
The extended caption for the painting is in English, the lingua franca of the art world. The author’s mother tongue is present only on the painting’s reverse side as a sign of their subjection to a higher order, but also expressing care towards local art consumers.
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F
1-10/10
0508.50
The Lesson of Art II.
Zbyněk Baladrán
Acrylic on canvas and UV print on vinyl
50 × 70 cm
2023
What exactly do these paintings depict? They show the contradiction of their existence, a contradiction based on the assumption that commodification is the cornerstone of our culture. Autonomous art was made possible by commodification which liberated it from its dependence on the Church, state or other forms of patronage. The unreliability of the end owner has, to a degree, freed art from the utility and value dictated from elsewhere. Autonomous art thus becomes an ornament of capitalist culture. On the other hand, one can say that autonomous art is wholly destroyed by developed capitalism. Commodification as a general principle of society reduces all values to exchange value, including the values of art, thus destroying art’s autonomy. Consequently, capitalist culture is the death of autonomous art.
The extended caption for the painting is in English, the lingua franca of the art world. The author’s mother tongue is present only on the painting’s reverse side as a sign of their subjection to a higher order, but also expressing care towards local art consumers.
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G
1-10/10
0608.50
The Lesson of Art III.
Zbyněk Baladrán
Acrylic on canvas and UV print on vinyl
70 × 50 cm
2023
In a society dominated by commodification, everything external to this commodification becomes peripheral, subject to social irrelevance, or simply waits in line for its commodification. Art is both merchandise and a product of capitalism, its own ideology as well as criticism. An artwork is a materialized contradiction. Commodification is a precondition of autonomous art as well as the condition of its impossibility. Art critiques the lie implicitly contained in merchandise – that exchange value is the only value possible.
The extended caption for the painting is in English, the lingua franca of the art world. The author’s mother tongue is present only on the painting’s reverse side as a sign of their subjection to a higher order, but also expressing care towards local art consumers.
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H
1-10/10
0708.50
Morale and its aesthetics
Zbyněk Baladrán
Acrylic on canvas and UV print on vinyl
70 x 100 cm
2023
These series of paintings were created by means of patination, imitating a worn and weathered surface, and indicative of old age. The technique is most often used in forging artefacts or producing film and television sets. The artist learned painting at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts for a number of years, but had spent even more time working as a patina expert for international (usually American, British and French) film productions. He was most often solicited to create realistic imitations of weathered and dirty surfaces. Along with requiring a high degree of realism, film producers also imported a particular approach to maintaining morale – structured around individual success, they used it to motivate their Eastern European workers to achieve better results.
The extended caption for the painting is in English, the lingua franca of the art world. The author’s mother tongue is present only on the painting’s reverse side as a sign of their subjection to a higher order, but also expressing care towards local art consumers.
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I
1-10/10
0808.50
The Magical Fetish
Zbyněk Baladrán
Acrylic on canvas and UV print on vinyl
110 × 90 cm
2023
We can presume that abstract or supersensory sensuality makes an artwork special, generates its unique qualities and its autonomy, and negates the universalizing logic of exchange value. An autonomous artwork is similar to a magical fetish in that it uncovers what is repressed by capital – that not all is reducible to exchange value. An autonomous artwork is not merely some archaic vestige but rather a contradiction produced by capitalism, one which exposes its limits.
The extended caption for the painting is in English, the lingua franca of the art world. The author’s mother tongue is present only on the painting’s reverse side as a sign of their subjection to a higher order, but also expressing care towards local art consumers.
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J
1-10/10
0908.50
The Absolute Artwork Encounters Absolute Merchandise I.
Zbyněk Baladrán
Acrylic on canvas and UV print on vinyl
100 × 120 cm
2023
If autonomous art is the materialized contradiction inherent in the commodity form, within that very same culture it is also pregnant with potential. We must consider new forms of commodification as subsumed under new formations of autonomous art. And, conversely, new art forms ought to be explored as contradictions to new commodity formations. This helps clear up many questions.
The extended caption for the painting is in English, the lingua franca of the art world. The author’s mother tongue is present only on the painting’s reverse side as a sign of their subjection to a higher order, but also expressing care towards local art consumers.
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K
1-10/10
0908.50
The Absolute Artwork Encounters Absolute Merchandise II.
Zbyněk Baladrán
Acrylic on canvas and UV print on vinyl
120 × 100 cm
2023
The artwork insists on being autonomous, something irreducible to its own commodification. Art thus finds itself increasingly threatened and unable to pay attention to anything outside itself. But that only makes it follow the logic of commodification all the more. Pure art’s ignorance of its connectedness with commodification is ideological, that is when it denies such a connection or misconstrues it. Artworks which are not reduced to mere commodification, or are even in ideological conflict with it, will become commodified in the future. It is not possible to ignore or avoid these questions.
The extended caption for the painting is in English, the lingua franca of the art world. The author’s mother tongue is present only on the painting’s reverse side as a sign of their subjection to a higher order, but also expressing care towards local art consumers.
Fotografie: xy
Fotografie: xy