Searching for the Šlapanice Faith: Chrysanthemums, Community, Rituals, Memory

The exhibition, part of the project Searching for the Šlapanice Faith: Chrysanthemums, Community, Rituals, Memory, realized within the Specific Research FaVU-S-21-7349 at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology, presents fragments from the breeding work of Jan Dvořák (1924–2006), which have been preserved in the form of identified varieties of garden chrysanthemums, collected by Mrs. Marta Fišerová from Šlapanice. During his lifetime, Jan Dvořák bred over 400 varieties of garden chrysanthemums that were intended mainly for amateur gardeners and small growers. After the breeder’s death, his garden centre closed and most of the varieties were lost, scattered throughout South-Moravian gardens, from where they have been gradually disappearing. The vast majority of chrysanthemums that are on sale today are radically different in appearance and height from the varieties popularized by Jan Dvořák in this country. He was popular and respected in horticultural circles, was a member of the National Chrysanthemum Society in the UK and was also in contact with the president of the Japanese National Chrysanthemum Society. In 1962, Dvořák’s chrysanthemums were represented at the ikebana exhibition at the House of Arts featuring the internationally acclaimed avant-garde sculptor Sofu Teshigahara, the founder of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana who associated this discipline with informal sculpture.

The exhibition and the forthcoming publication question the position of cultivated plants and the resulting continuity or discontinuity of their existence: on which side of the scale between nature and culture are they, if their existence depends on the care of individual gardeners and the active memory of individuals, semi-formal groups or institutions?

The concept of the exhibition itself is based on a reinterpretation of the genre of ikebana by means of contemporary visual art and will try to convey to the viewers the perception of these ornamental plants from a slightly different angle than is usual at garden shows.