Phoenixes

The installation Phoenixes belongs to a group of Jiří Černický’s works collectively entitled Artphobia. All the objects collected under the heading of the “fear of art” share a surrounding aura of disquiet and the author’s trademark ironic sense of humour. Minimalist installations, constructed from trivial objects such as a cup of coffee (Pressso) or tangled electric wires (Binds) and sometimes provided with a caption, constitute a commentary to labile situations, ones that generate uncertainty, cause a person to refrain from taking action, or herald unwelcome but inevitable changes. The reference to a phobia, an unexplainable but well-nigh irrepressible fear, gives Černický’s objects a clearly introspective character.

Phoenixes are to a great extent a quizzical yet melancholic interpretation of the myth of the gold and crimson-plumaged bird, which was already familiar to Herodotus and many other classical authors. According to the tales, a phoenix was a unique, long-lived creature. Feeling the approach of death, it would build a nest of branches, roots and incense, which it would set afire. Self-immolating on its pyre, the phoenix yet escaped death, since a new bird was born from its ashes. In Černický’s installation, in place of the legendary phoenix to be reborn from the ashes of its nest, there are dead insects in an ashtray. The theme of transformation and symbolic rebirth after death, which constitutes the essence of the myth, is thus subverted.

The reference to fear, which is present in this work – or, in fact, the fear of art, as stated by the title given to the entire group of objects, and hence also fear of creation – suggests the reading of Phoenixes in the context of the artist’s analysis of the inner world. The mythical rebirth from the ashes can be perceived in terms of rising from a fall, coming out of an impasse or recovering from creative impotence or burnout. Černický’s installation is situated on the dark side of this reading. In Phoenixes, the myth is not fulfilled, the transformation does not occur, and the collapse is envisioned as a permanent state.

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translated from Polish by Klaudyna Michałowicz