THE AGREEMENT
What Art really reveals to us is Nature's lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition. Nature has good intentions, of course, but, as Aristotle once said, she cannot carry them out.1
„Human Art and Inhuman Nature“ – this is a name of the essay The Philosophy of Modern Art written by Sir Herbert E. Read.2 In the given chapter, Read is reflecting so too speak an eternal issue of significance of art and of design in life of man. The art seems to be the resolution and the answer to the human need to create and to surround ourselves by the more or less artificial artefacts. The frame and the point of Read research is given by the name itself and already from beginning is supported by the intuitive opinion of Oscar Wilde, for whom the whole issue of art creation is connected with the idea of artificial nature. Wilde3 himself is this way moving to fostering human creation before nature itself. According to Wild the nature and plurality of natural forms is in its fragmentation monotonous. The beauty of zoological or any other type of garden is discovered and also created by the observer staying outside if it.4 It is nature which needs an object and not in the opposite. Differing from Wildes freeing of art from the world of nature, close interconnection of both worlds and accent upon the beauty of nature we are finding in opinion of other Victorian writer and thinker John Ruskin. However, the nature and this, what we are calling a world of nature, as a space, which is different from artificial world, is too radical a cut. This, what we so radically semantically separate and juxtapose into contradictory positions (natural versus artificial/non- natural) does not have to be in a conflict.5 Neither of mentioned authors perceived clash of human and natural in such a radical way and both of them accentuated an object in a differing way, which is not a reflection of nature, but its representative. The object itself, in one case an observer, in other case a creator, is a creature on the cutting edge of worlds and a citizen of both. A man is a creator perceiving his creation, but also this which he did not created.
“The Agreement” is about explicit connection of natural and artificial, which are filling-up the same vessel. The one word association of given artwork is the notion of construction. The construction which supports, interconnects, creates equilibrium, opens and protects as a city, is a precursor to the state of finish and is mirroring a state of process. The creator is not interested in a copy – a mimesis of nature, neither in creation of artificial in a contrast to nature. “The Agreement” is a project, where artificial is becoming natural. In a given artwork is this way reflected an elementary idea, with which Read, Ruskin also Wilde are working. The art is an activity, which is a part of nature of one group of living creatures – humans. “The Agreement” is a result of author’s natural need to create. For him there is not a goal to create something artificial inserted into world of nature, but something natural into a world of nature. Libertíny’s work is a construction of second nature in a dialogue with what Read is calling a non-human nature.
“The Agreement” is more architectural than sculptural work. Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny is building and constructing a work of art as a structure out of specific material and according to a concrete plan, he is not modeling it as a statue. Design of natural forms, as is honeycomb, is a natural strategy, which is serving to survival of bees. Not a geometry, which is admired in a honeycomb by a man, but the function of honeycomb to be a home, is the purpose of given material. A house, which is growing, is changing and is in possession of its own life. The architecture of Libertíny respects the laws of nature, curves and is looking for stability, is equalizing pressure and is changing its form according to requests of stability and surviving if self-supporting construction. The shape itself is not a work of sculpture, but an endeavor for quest of stability. In this way the “The Agreement” is a manifestation of rationalization of form.
A beehive by itself is not beautiful, nor perfect, it is only natural and in this is anchored the perception of Wilde about monotonous nature. Because, what, according to Wilde, should characterize the art, is its absence of practical purpose.6 It is the subject, an observer, who is passively excited in regard to beauty of natural orderliness and this way is giving to the natural world an esthetic value. However, Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny, as a being from another world, is actively entering into the world of nature. He is recalibrating, changing, constructing principles and offering a different plan to the bees – a proposition. And what is the reaction? Signing of an agreement. The world of second - Reads non-human naturalness - is accepting his challenge. The construction, artificial and coming out of world of author, is becoming a natural platform for the work of swarm of bees. For the work of art itself, as a dialogue with the nature, this acceptance, which is given to this artificial construction, is inevitable. The bees are reacting via their creative expansion above intention of author himself.
In Libertíny’s “The Agreement” is behind the glass appearing a similar motive as in the case of Walter Gropias architecture, where the movement in functionalistic spaces encapsulated in glass (Fagus Shoe Factory) is a decor, and this way the work is acquiring a continually new form. A natural process of existence of one class of species – the circle of life of bees – is becoming an object of esthetic experience of a man. The idea of evaluation and creation of bees by an observer is accentuated by encapsulating a sculpture element into an architectonic space.
A motive of bee architecture “The Agreement” is inspired by effectiveness and esthetic of natural forms. “The Agreement” is a staging architecture, in which a several motives from the world of nature and humans are fused. It is interconnecting sculptural, architectonic and also scenographic, and these altogether are representing a complex product – a medium, which, as a reference, is representing an idea of variability of nature but also of human world. It is a fusion of various technologies and constructions behind glass, where a show is unfolding for a human observer.
“The Agreement” is a theatre, which is taking into consideration specific relations inside of given swarm. Tomáš Gabzdil Libertiny is choosing a partner for his work. His young bees, who are set to build a home for themselves and for their queen, are determined to be extremely productive to construct a given work. Tomáš Gabzdil Libertiny – as an author – is entering into their lives, is helping and creating a space for them, he is, in a way, living with them and is cognizant of their inner relations and to us he is offering an possibility to take a pleasure in, what we could, together with the Immanuel Kant,7 named a magnificence and greatness, which is immanent to life itself.
1 WILDE, Oscar: The Decay of Lying. In: WILDE, Oscar: De profundis and other writings. London : Penguin Books Ltd. 1986, s. 57.
2 Comp.. READ, Herbert: The Philosophy of Modern Art. London : Faber and Faber, 1964, s. 73–87.
3 WILDE, Oscar: The Decay of Lying. In: WILDE, Oscar: De profundis and other writings. London : Penguin Books Ltd. 1986.
4 WILDE, Oscar: The Decay of Lying. In: WILDE, Oscar: De profundis and other writings. London : Penguin Books Ltd. 1986, s. 57. „As for the infinite variety of Nature, that is a pure myth. It is not to be found in Nature herself. It resides in the imagination, or fancy, or cultivated blindness of the man who looks at her.“
5 Comp. READ, Herbert: The Philosophy of Modern Art. London : Faber and Faber, 1964, s. 73. „Obviously nature is a very flexible term – so flexible that Oscar Wilde found it possible to suggest that nature is the creation of art.“
6 WILDE, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray. London : Penguin Books Ltd, 1985, s. 6. „All art is quite useless.“
7 Comp. KANT, Immanuel: Kritik der Urteilskraft. Stuttgart : Philipp Reclam Jun., 1971, § 25. „Erhaben nennen wir das, was schlechthin groß ist.“ (Sublime is the name given to what is absolutely great.)