5th Virtual biennale Prague 2011

AUG DESIGN – Seventh International parade of visual arts and design. Theme CHINA.

International Art Project is divided into two categories: Professional and Student Category and is representing visual artists from Austria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Iran, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Taiwan and the United States.

Altán Klamovka Gallery, Prague
8. 11. - 4. 12. 2011

Authors of project Karel Míšek and Lenka Sýkorová.
Curator of project is Lenka Sýkorová
Graphic design by Jiří Toman, Michal Kukačka and Jakub Konupka.

Organising committee / Karel Míšek (CZ, chairman of the committee), Radek Medal (CZ), Thierry Sarfis (FR), Karel Aubrecht (CZ), Michal Kukačka (CZ) and Jiří Toman (CZ).

International jury / Dušan Junek (SK, chair of the jury), István Orosz (H), Laze Tripkov (MK), Jan Hora (CZ), Pavel Noga (CZ).

Crises, Europe, China. These words have been repeated again and again in the media these days. Contemporary society is undergoing problems with economical crises accompanied by the decline of moral values. Omnipresent corruption, where people committing minor frauds are penalized by large fines while large frauds aren’t penalized at all, spreads in a form of plague epidemics. The whole Western world continues to buy cheap Chinese products with the full awareness that these products were made by children labourers. At the same time, the developed Western society hasn’t been noticing for many years that this stance provides emerging Chinese economics with enormous space. No wonder today’s Czech newspapers say: “China is waiting with open arms to help European Union with the crisis.” European politics are helpless and ready to deal with China in order to save the Eurozone. We are living in peculiar times when many people lead the fashionable “sustainable” life style, but they buy “organic” food produced and imported from China. Planes and trucks filled with goods cruise the Earth back and forth making the probable heritage for future generations devastated environment full of garbage. The Czech tradition is slowly falling apart. Before we could even notice all Czech traditional car manufactures will be in the hands of Chinese owners. The bestseller book “Time for Outrage!” by former French resistance fighter Stéphane Hessel spreads all around the world, its author appeals for political engagement against social injustice. The social phenomenon “The rich get richer, the poor get poorer” incites many ongoing protest movements. So far the people involved in protest movement across the western hemisphere haven’t reached cohesive analyses of problems that force them out to the streets, but one thing is for sure, the world is dealing with largest united protests since the year 1968.  At that time young people involved in the movement disagreed with lifestyle and existential destiny of their parents, today on the contrary young people would like to live the lives of their parents. As Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastěv claims we are witnessing “the year 1968 upside down”. It comes as no surprise that many young south Europeans have lost their jobs. All in all contemporary situation could be labelled as “existential disgust”.

Virtual biennale Prague is dedicated year after year to topical subjects and invites young students of graphic design, as well as professional graphic designers, from all around the world to provide their visual representations. The topic of the year 2009 was “Global Crises”, in 2010 “Discrimination” and this year’s topic is China. The organization board is responsible for choosing the subject related to the global development of society, as the preparation, realization and presentation of the project are globally “all-over-accessible” on the internet. The artists upload their graphic designs on the website of the virtual biennale. Communication with participants is held on the internet via email call. The participants deal with their observations on the given subject matter in the form of author posters in black and white. This year the graphic designers mostly dealt with the global problems connected with the crises and growing influence of Chinese economics on global development. Their works were often based on visual symbolism emphasized by a gentle mixture of irony and anticipated thread. This year’s virtual biennale became a high-quality display of authors’ posters virtuously mastering black and white drawing. An international jury comprising Dušan Janek /SK/ as jury chairman, István Orosz /H/, Laze Tripkov /MK/, Jan Hora /CZ/ and Pavel Noga /CZ/ is responsible for nominating three winners in two categories: professionals and students. This year 160 artists from 19 countries took part in the virtual biennale. The organization committee is formed by Karel Míšek /CZ committee chairman, Radek Medal /CZ/, Thierry Sarfis /F/, Karel Aubrecht /CZ/, Michal Kukačka /CZ/ and Jiří Toman /CZ/. The virtual biennale is organized by Association of Applied Graphics and Design in cooperation with Prague gallery Altán Klamovka. The posters are to be seen both on the internet and in the gallery space.

Lenka Sýkorová