METAMORPHOSEON

02.06.2012 - 02.06.2012 | Regional Gallery / Museum of European Art in Liberec

site-specific installation in a frame of the Night Museum, 11 - 12 p.m.

Into the transformations of images and sounds in the space above the stairs it is possible to climb and descend through the apotheosis of night.
It's a dream about the museum of the history and future of human memory of the world.
Become Moonrise with your left eye, become Sunset by your right eye.

Olive bath of stairs arch with the floral window to heaven
Is covered
By waves of leaves and the vegetative body
And
It is framed by strict labyrinths paths,
Color of middle of light transforming
They turn into the rainbow arc from black to black again
Shades of night
Are drawn through the paths of swirling fireflies
By Midsummer Night life
Body and stars

METAMORPHOSEON, sound video site-specific installation, duration of one hour, 02.06.2012

METAMORPHOSIS representing one-hour mixed video loop, projected on the stucco ceiling and vitrages of the stair hall in former Liebieg‘s Neo-Renaissance villa. The character of historic areas, realised by Gustav Sacher, which was graduated in the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, it will be moved by work of Miloš Šejn. It also augurs character of his forthcoming retrospective at the gallery in Liberec since 14th June – 2nd September 2012.

For over 15 years, Miloš Šejn, whose retrospective exhibition can be seen on the gallery’s ground floor, has been taking part in organizing the activities of Bohemiae Rosa. This company creates site specific art projects, which work with the Genius Loci of a place and are intended to make a specific place more extraordinary. One of the site specific projects was the video installation called Metamorphoseon / Metamorphoses, which took place in the Liberec Regional Gallery during the Museum Night of 2 June 2012.
Metamorphoses is a one-hour loop of video collage projected at the stucco ceiling and stained glass of the staircase hall of this Neo-Renaissance villa, which was built for Johann Liebieg the younger. The staircase hall in which you find yourself is amongst the most representative parts of the whole villa. In its interior there are stucco decorations, wall reliefs with mythological motifs, a staircase railing rich in artistry and a stained glass skylight with plant motifs. The visitor will barely notice the grandeur of the space at the first glance, however, as most of the decor is placed outside the usual angle of view.
This is why Miloš Šejn came up with a video installation that directs the viewer’s eyes towards the ceiling. The medium of film gives the Neo-Renaissance message of harmony between man and Nature a different form. The projection uses two parallel sequences – an outer one, which creates a ‘frame’, and an inner one, which fills the center of the shot. The outer sequence shows the movement of fireflies, while the inner uses views of many natural structures. A hologram full of energy unfolds in front of the viewer’s eyes, reminiscent of the perpetual whirl of microscopic particles. The dance of these particles, their incessant creation and destruction, their pulsation, simulates well the film of fireflies. In the main sequence, a human figure appears briefly as a reminder of the High Renaissance ideal of harmony between man and his unspoiled natural environment.
The video installation heralded the unconventional character of the artist’s retrospective exhibition called Archives and Cabinets, which will be running at the Liberec Regional Gallery from 14 June until 2 September 2012.

Zuzana Štěpanovičová