/the subtle immediacy of radeq brousil/
Radeq Brousil (b. 1980), studies and scholarships: Brussels, Montreal,
Prague. In systematically building his own myth, he has based it on
deliberate subversion. A sense of visual fragmentariness is to him an
authentic expression of the contemporary experience, and probably also
of the contemporary understanding of the world. The ambiguity of interpretation
and the artist\'s elusiveness are both intentional and obvious.
Radeq Brousil wants to enjoy himself, be onstage; he wants to both
irritate and to be a success. Aside from this, however, there is no doubt
that just as with many other artists, he wants to be read precisely and
on a completely different level. The games, masks, life, reality, coldness,
rawness, obsession, and falsity, as well as vulgarity, of Brousil\'s photographs
at times suddenly and surprisingly break into unexpected poetry
and tenderness. It is thanks to this quality that we cannot dismiss
Radeq Brousil quite so easily. His photographs are in fact covertly
romantic, melancholy images of loneliness and fear. The clear background
of his works, which deliberately draw us with greater or lesser
degrees of intensity into suspected, dark passions, is nonetheless
formed by the artist\'s self-possession and consideration for just how far
he lets us in. Desire is present, yet hidden, as is the balancing act that
Radeq Brousil employs. He offers his images for decoding, presenting
them with great consideration. Masks are a favorite device: hidden
behind the mask, looking out through the mask. The demonstrated
voyeur is a clever fellow. He anticipates our thoughts, offering us the bait
of his voyeurism even before we can uncover it for ourselves. All the
more difficult for us then to give up this ready offering, a complication of
coding, in our interpretation. One cannot deny the artist a certain
aesthetic value and erudition. In terms of form, he knows exactly what
he wants to avoid, and in terms of content, intuitively rather than
rationally he rummages in the bric-a-brac as well as treasures of
personal secrets, in order to impudently thrust them in the face of our
own reflection. Unwittingly, in sporadic flashes, we recognize ourselves
and cease to notice that the artists is in fact talking about himself, that
he is merely playing with us. He remains alone with his game. Is that
what he was actually aiming for?
/ivan pinkava/