Exhibition talk
Brno Art Open 2022

We cordially invite you to a guided tour of the Brno Art Open 2022 gGeEnn public space art show with the subtitle Mendel is... an Artist!. On Sunday 24 July, curators Milan Kreuzzieger and Milan Mikuláštík will present the works of all artists participating in this year's show. The walk will begin at 4 pm at the Augustinian Monastery on Mendel Square and will end at the Villa Löw-Beer garden.

ABOUT BRNO ART OPEN 2022

Artists: Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny (SK/NL), Anna Hulačová (CZ), Kuai Shen (EC/DE), Saša Spačal (SI), Jiří Y. Suchánek (CZ), Uli Westphal (DE)

Curators: Milan Kreuzzieger, Milan Mikuláštík

In 2022, the periodical exhibition of art projects in the public space Brno Art Open (BAO) will be dedicated to the memory of Johann Gregor Mendel, the world-famous Brno scientist, considered to be one of the founders of genetics.

It is a strange, yet in a certain sense typical paradox that in Czech society, Mendel’s fame comes nowhere near a level corresponding to his international significance. The next edition of the BAO festival with an exhibition of artworks in the public space called gGeEnn, with the subtitle Mendel Is… an Artist! wishes to commemorate Johann Gregor Mendel as a complex personality and cover, at least in part, the breadth of his multidisciplinary scientific research including, in addition to plant breeding and crossbreeding, for example beekeeping or meteorological activities, as well as other natural sciences.

The locations for the individual realizations were selected with regard to the places where Mendel’s historical discoveries took place or were presented (Old Brno Monastery, school in Jánská Street), where small everyday events and activities occurred (his parental house in Hynčice), or places pointing out the ambitions of Brno as an active scientific, research and educational centre of international importance.

Two heterogeneous concepts – bio-art and art in public space – will meet in the gGeEnn project to create a distinctive synthesis enabling the visualization of the selected topics attractively and objectively. Bio-art is an artistic direction that radically combines scientific and artistic approaches, manipulates biological (often unstable and dynamically changing) materials and living organisms, leaving much room for experimentation. The connection of artistic and scientific imagination brings a new enriching view of important social phenomena and opens a discussion on the major ethical issues and problems of the present.

The gGeEnn exhibition introduces Johann Gregor Mendel not only as a scientist, but also as a man who, even two hundred years after his birth, can inspire contemporary artists. Young creators respond to the mental turn caused by the global ecological awakening, which makes them think about the power that tends to organize life both at the macro-level of the environment, human communities, and at the micro-level of cells.