Guided tour of the exhibition CHASING THE HOURGLASS

Despite appearances, it is not so often that contemporary artists openly subscribe to a certain, obviously short-lived trend. All the more so since, in the case of ornamental hermitism, it is a trend that reached a boom in the second half of the 18th century in England and elsewhere. The predominantly secularized Rousseauian hermits of the time embodied an ideal of solitary seclusion, typically situated in simple huts in the secluded quasi-natural milieu of aristocratic parks. These "first performers," as Vojtěch Novák and Elena Pecenová put it, function as avatars, embodying hermetic aspirations on the basis of a commercial mandate and becoming projections of lifestyles that their employers could not or would not fulfill. According to Gordon Campbell, a leading expert on ornamental hermeticism, garden gnomes filled the void left by the retreat of the fashion wave in question in the early 19th century. In the current situation, however, there are other candidates for the post of heirs of the former hermits for hire. Indeed, in the residential gardens of the ongoing development, art can simultaneously function as an ornament of advancing gentrification and as a memento that there are other things.