Simple Present Tense

12. 9. – 20. 9. 2020 (opening: friday 11th of September 2020 6 PM)

Exhibitors: Juan David Calderón Ardila, Ranaji Deb, Oskar Helcel, Martin Netočný, Hassan Sarbakhshian, Evgenii Smirnov, Longyu You

curated by: Hynek Alt

graphic design: Matěj Moravec

Diploma exhibition of students of Department of Photography, FAMU, Prague.

What is the mood like in the country?
Last dictator loses his grip.
I just don’t exist.
You trade your health for art.
There are no viruses here.
Extremists try to storm German parliament.
Leave before it’s too late!
Villagers prefer hard work.
NBA players take a real political action.
China hits back.
Share your experiences!
Drone footage reveals scale of damage.
Candidate comes out of hiding.
Zuckerberg blames contractors.
Each day we learn about a new loss.
Turmoil sparks starkly different reactions.
Banksy funds refugee rescue boat.
New York’s not dead.
People turn their basements into secret fantasy worlds.
Unite and heal!
Resign!

The simple present tense is used to express an action that is happening now or regularly. It is the most common form of the verb used. These examples of headlines using simple present tense are taken from today’s issue of the British newspaper The Guardian.

Recognizing signs of the present time lies at the core of an artist’s practice. The constant flow and the unclear distinction of when present emerges from the immediate future only to slip into petrified past a moment later, make this task extremely demanding on one’s attention. All technical images as individual or sequential indexical recordings always capture only what is here and now. That is a quality of technical images that helps us distinguish our memories from our immediate experiences since the time of shadows in caves.

Seven students exhibiting their diploma projects derive their initial experience from photography. Each one’s practice has evolved over time and each one has arrived at utilizing a different medium and an original language of their own. No common theme is treated in the Simple Present Tense exhibition, it is rather shared physical and psychological conditions in which all the works were conceived. A situation of informational overload, insecurity, and extreme change in how we perceive physical reality produced strategies of radical honesty, flexibility, and the necessity for new precision.

video by Filip Kopecký

Photo by Světlana Malinová