Hay, straw. Works in landscape and natural processes in art

The exhibition introduces land art-based works that use natural processes, reflect on the changes of the environment, or make subtle interventions in landscape. The title of the exhibition comes from the legendary 1969 exhibition Seno-sláma (Hay-straw) by one of the presented artists Zorka Ságlová, in which she filled in the spaces of Špála gallery in Prague with the packages of hay and straw. These as well as another "poor" materials instantly at hand wherever in fields of woods - clay, leafs, grass, stones or wood - are used by most of the artists in the exhibition. The presented artworks were informed by the specific political context that influenced its character and acceptance. Its development was parallel with the land art movement, which in Central Europe gained a different format of rather intimately conceived events aimed at a small circle of colleagues artists or allied curators. Only later it became known from the documentation (photographs, exceptionally also video), nowadays almost the only source of knowledge. It wasn't a coherent group of artists, and they also had close connections with action art, happening or body art movements.
We concentrate on artworks made from the 1960s till the 1980s, number of them connected with Vysočina region: Ivan Kafka situated his installations at the end of 1970s and the beginning of 1980s in the surrounding of Branišov by Jihlava; the activities of Vladimír Havlík took place in the 1980s in Žďársko area; the event Pocta jasným hvězdám (A tribute to bright stars) by Olaf Hanel at Melechov hill by Světlá nad Sázavou; Zorka Ságlová was born in Humpolec. Landscape-based art in Slovakia had similar features, and included the ritualized events in nature or various recordings of natural processes observations. In Slovakia, the ecology was reflected more explicitely, also in the works by artists Peter Bartoš, Michal Kern, or Jana Želibská. Apart from the artists from the former Czechoslovakia, Teresa Murak from Poland will be included. She is the author of poetic events that often involve the processes of growth; she works with seeds of fastly germinating cress, leaven, or river mud. It will be the first presentation of the artist in the Czech Republic. The eight chosen artists present different approaches to landscape, and their work is also a starting point for reflection on the relevance of land art movement for current art.