Kristyna and Marek Milde

ČT Art  Události v kultuře , 22.9, 2023

Výstava k 30 letům vstupu ČR do OSN

Czech Television features artists Kristyna and Marek Milde and their work Homescape at Manitoga on the occasion of Czech President Petr Pavel‘s visit to the exhibition Amicable Separation at the Czech Center, where Marek Milde talks about the work Motherboards, which is part of the exhibition.  The curator Charlotta Kotik, the granddaughter of the first Czechoslovak President T.G. Masaryk,  introduces the exhibition and talks about her discovery of Louise Bourgeois and her participation in the Venice Biennale.

Kristyna and Marek Milde, Solo Exhibition Conductive Fields

Hesse Flatow Gallery, NYC

July 13 – August  11, 2023

 

Mark Dion, Kristyna and Marek Milde in conversation with Christelle Havranek

Kunsthalle Praha, October 1, 2021

Celem k Umeni/Fudstream/

7_____9. 12. 2020____16:30

Kristyna and Marek Milde ” Vztahy, Vzory, Konstelace” 

Kristyna a Marek Milde: To je nase role “ aktivizovat divaka!

Czech Radio Vltava  Vizitka

March 25, 2019

Listen to our interview moderated by Renata Spitsarova in the Czech language

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Word Clean-Up Day: Interview with Kristyna and Marek Milde

September 15, 2018

One day. One planet. One goal.

Millions of people in 150 countries uniting to clean up our world,

in the biggest civic action in human history.

Meet Kristyna and Marek Milde an artist couple from the Czech Republic residing in New York,

who interpret the city through the things its people throw away on the streets.”

Peripheral ARTeries Magazine, Aniversary Edition, December 2017, pg 4-31

Interview with Kristyna and Marek Milde

PDF of the Article Here

Discussing in detail with the curators Dario Rutigliano (United Kindom) and Melissa C. Hilborn (USA/ Germany) Milde’s collaborative artistic process and strategies they utilize in their recent projects.

“Milde’s works convey a coherent sense of unity that rejects any conventional classification.”

Radio BTRtoday, Art Uncovered series hosted by Kimberley Ruth, December 19, 2017

Interview with Kristyna and Marek Milde

Interview on the BTR Radio as part of the Art Uncovered series hosted by Kimberley Ruth, where Milde’s discuss many topics and projects including the Public Library currently on view as part of the exhibition Building and Rebuilding at Repair the World.  Tags: Bees | Books| Collaboration |Environment | Furniture | Home | Sustainability

Art Uncovered brings you interviews with an eclectic mix of artists and creators. On the show, they discuss their work and how it may intersect with technology, pop culture, science, and the larger culture. Kimberly Ruth is a New York-based multi-media artist, radio host, founder of the Gnome Magazine, and Professor of Journalism and Photography at SUNY New Paltz.

EFA SHIFT RESIDENCY: INTERVIEW WITH KRISTYNA AND MAREK MILDE, MARCH 2015

EFA: Natural Cleaners is a video of you cleaning the trees and rivers of rural Pennsylvania using household tools such as a broom and mop. How do you see environmental issues being linked to domesticity?

KMM: We see domesticity as a focus point, where many issues are tight together reflecting not only our personal life but also the wider context of environment and culture. In our homes, personal reflects the general and individual choices that influence the larger surroundings.

The performance Natural Cleaners draws attention to wider issues of how we perceive indoor and outdoor space while it challenges the way we behave in these environments. It examines the common domestic task of cleaning as a primeval cultural statement of claiming, defining, and controlling space.

It also asks basic questions about the general acceptance of the toxicity of household products. By shifting the activity of cleaning to nature and using conventional home cleaners, we experience, how artificial they truly are. Spraying glass cleaner on a mirror seems normal while using it on a tree bark feels disturbing, pouring it into a mountain stream will ultimately turn it into a pollutant. Many household products we routinely use kill 99.9 % of bacteria, creating a clean environment. Culturally the idea of cleanliness is connected to the idealized image of nature as something pristine.

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KRISTYNA MILDE INTERVIEW ABOUT  Ã LA CART 

Little Patuxent Review, journal of literature and art, published February 2015

A La Cart, 2014

LPR: Could you please describe the arc of Á la Cart? I’ve seen a list of instructions for participants, and I saw the carts, but is it being documented, and if so how? Do you think of this piece as having an end? Will participants’ experiences be distributed to each other or an audience in some way?

KM: Project Á la Cart is a participatory, edible workshop experiment, which started with the initial question, “If we are what we eat, who we are if we don’t know the origin and the context of the production of our food?” It was originally created for Smack Mellon’s exhibition FOODshed: Art and Agriculture in Action, curated by Amy Lipton. We started by inviting members of the local community in DUMBO Brooklyn, inexperienced in gardening, to actively engage in the process of growing ingredients for a single dish of their choice. Each participant adopted one supermarket shopping cart filled with soil that served as a garden bed and attempted to cultivate ingredients for his or her favorite recipe. The development of the project was documented and the participants were asked to take notes about the experience. A formation of six carts functioning as the garden was parked at Old Fulton Plaza in a public space. The project took place in the growing season of 2014 starting in May and was finished in late September with a public event presented at the Dumbo Street Festival that featured the harvest and a gathering of the participants, who met to eat and to share their experience and ideas about the urban gardening and sustainable food production. The idea of Á la Cart is to serve both as a living sculpture and a platform for growing food. It is not meant to be a farm or a professional gardening course but rather a playground encouraging new experiences while reconsidering the limits of consumerism.

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NYFA CURRENT:

Con Edison Immigrant Artist Program Newsletter, Issue No. 57

Kristyna and Marek Milde from the Czech Center New York (CCNY)

Interview by Felicity Hogan

 This month, IAP highlights the comprehensive and prolific activities of the Czech Center New York, interviewing Program Manager Kristyna Milde and Production Manager Marek Milde, who also collaborate as part of their artistic practice. In light of an upcoming exhibition at Wave Hill’s Sunroom Project Space, opening on May 23, we took the opportunity to learn more about both the CCNY and Kristyna’s and Marek’s collaborative process, with a focus on how each influence and interacts with the other.

Can you tell us about the mission and activities of The Czech Center New York?

The Czech Center New York (CCNY) is the official cultural institute of the Czech Republic, dedicated to promoting Czech art abroad and fostering interaction between Czechs, Americans, and the wide international community in New York City. The CCNY, established in 1995, is part of a global network of Czech Centers supporting artists, professionals, and cultural exchange in 23 countries on three continents. CCNY is located in the recently redesigned Bohemian National Hall (BNH) on the Upper East Side, on E. 73rd Street between First and Second Avenues, which is a five-story building, built-in 1896. It is a rare survivor of the many social halls built in the nineteenth century for New York City’s immigrant ethnic communities. Our facilities include a gallery, cinema, performance hall seating 300 people, and a rooftop terrace.

Our team of four people creates programs of about 80–100 events per year. We host a wide range of mostly free events showcasing contemporary Czech art, together with international collaborations in music, fine art, and design, and feature annual film festivals and seasonal rooftop screenings.

We focus on presenting contemporary artists and projects, which are committed to engaging cultural discourse and addressing relevant cultural- and social themes. While we provide a platform for interaction and dialogue of Czechs with local and international artists, we encourage the production of new works and are presenting concerts, screenings that are North American- or world premieres, and site-specific installations in our gallery.

Can you tell us about the mission and activities of The Czech Center New York?

The Czech Center New York (CCNY) is the official cultural institute of the Czech Republic, dedicated to promoting Czech art abroad and fostering interaction between Czechs, Americans, and the wide international community in New York City. The CCNY, established in 1995, is part of a global network of Czech Centers supporting artists, professionals, and cultural exchange in 23 countries on three continents. CCNY is located in the recently redesigned Bohemian National Hall (BNH) on the Upper East Side, on E. 73rd Street between First and Second Avenues, which is a five-story building, built-in 1896. It is a rare survivor of the many social halls built in the nineteenth century for New York City’s immigrant ethnic communities. Our facilities include a gallery, cinema, performance hall seating 300 people, and a rooftop terrace.

Our team of four people creates programs of about 80–100 events per year. We host a wide range of mostly free events showcasing contemporary Czech art, together with international collaborations in music, fine art, and design, and feature annual film festivals and seasonal rooftop screenings.

We focus on presenting contemporary artists and projects, which are committed to engaging cultural discourse and addressing relevant cultural- and social themes. While we provide a platform for interaction and dialogue of Czechs with local and international artists, we encourage the production of new works and are presenting concerts, screenings that are North American- or world premieres, and site-specific installations in our gallery.

While primarily supporting Czech culture, the organization is also open to ideas around current cultural or social themes and international projects. Can you point to recent examples of this?

While the Czech Center New York’s mission is to Czech culture, it seems that in the interconnected world of today, the cultural presentation based solely on national origin is fading. We think the art today, rather than present itself, needs to communicate and be aware of the international discourse. We are pleased that in the recent past, we have been able to organize a series of international collaborations in which the Czech was not just the label of the country of origin, but rather an element of driving cultural force.

CCNY is a member of the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC), which includes European Cultural Institutes in New York, and representatives from the cultural departments of European Consulates and Embassies in NYC. We collaborate on events and festivals throughout the year. For example, the European Film Festival, which the Czech Center established 6 years ago, grew from a small collaboration of a few countries to a large 2-week festival with about 20 participants now called Panorama Europe. This year we partnered with the Museum of the Moving Image to enable the festival’s expansion.

Another recent example is an art criticism conference, which we organized together with Finnish, Polish, and Spanish cultural institutes and AICA International on April 27, called “Walking in the Air: Art Criticism in Europe.” We had five speakers talking about the current state of art criticism in their representative countries, and Hrag Vartanian as a moderator, who is the editor and co-founder of the influential art blog Hyperallergic. We are hoping to establish this conference as an annual event as well.

Coming up at CCNY on May 27 at 7:00 PM is the US release of Mariusz Szczygieł’s newly published book, Gottland, translated to English, that deals with Czech history from the Polish perspective and world premiere for a Czech film based on the same book. The event will include excerpts from the film and is a collaboration with the Polish Cultural Institute and Melville House, the local publisher.

Read  the whole interview at NYFA website

KRISTYNA MILDE: CONVENTIONS, CONSUMERISM, ART AND WOMAN.

Interview with Kristyna Milde  by Natalia Liquiano

Estetica y Direccin de Arte

Weblog de apoyo de la asignatura Estética y Dirección de Arte. Prof. Ángel Fernández.

March 16, 2011

http://esteticacomunicacion.blogspot.com

Kristyna Milde is a Czech multidisciplinary artist who owns a very genuine style and a huge plastic versatility. Her work explores several sources of creation and inspiration; consumption, mass culture, women’s image, the auto-perception of the world, the culture models. Reflective, critical, and even incisive, but at the same, her work accumulates magic and almost childlike sweetness: no doubt she attains her artwork by talking itself.

Q “ Kristyna, would you please tell us just a bit about your career? How did you start in the artistic world?

A “ I am coming from a creative family; my mother and my younger brother are both artists. My mother is a painter and she also writes poetry. My brother is a conceptual artist working with the theme of personalizing the urban environment.

I have been creating things since I was really young – drawings, paintings, and sculptures. It was the most natural way of expression for me. I started to take various courses and finally decided to study painting. I went, along with my future husband Marek, to Basel Switzerland to study at the Assenza Malschule and spent four years there. After that, we moved to New York and went to the MFA program at Queens College, where we both graduated in 2007.

Q “ Many of your works use Barbie dolls, Action men, or their accessories to be developed. Why do you use these tools for your creations? What are the meanings or intentions?

A “ When I was little, there was still communism in my home country. The market was very limited. I played with simple toys, most of them made by my mother or grandmother. I also had some old toys. After the revolution in 1989, the market suddenly overflowed with western products I was shocked by the number of things and commodities and the mechanisms of quick disposal. I mean, after the period of restriction, everything was suddenly allowed. People started to buy things, they could not even dream of before. Instead of one type of yogurt, you have 20. I guess people were also disoriented, they did not know what is enough. So on one side, you have this hyper-consumption and on the other side, you have the disposal of “old” things, which are not “god” anymore. And we end up in a cycle, which can’t really fulfill anything. I think that is why I feel still quite sensitive to the overpowering market production, and its effects on human behavior. In my view kids playing with toys are not just playing, they are learning and absorbing specific perspectives of reality given by the producer. Children project their self-image onto the doll in an attempt to identify with it, which often results in in a so-called Barbie syndrome: the child longs for having the same physical appearance and social status as the doll. Plastic toys, especially Barbie dolls, in my opinion, symbolize the dark side of commodity exchange. By placing them in a different context in my artworks, I am trying to disclose the nakedness and emptiness of such things.

One of the inspirations for this part of my work is a book calledMomo by Michael Ende. The girl Momo has the gift to listen to people in such a way, that they start to understand themselves better. She lives in an old amphitheater and has almost nothing, but she also does not need much. The only thing she really needs is friendship. There are Grey Men in the city, stealing time from people. Momo, who tends to spend time playing and listening to stories, gets uncomfortable for them and they are trying to get rid of her. First they separate her from her friends by making them too busy to come and play with her. When she is quite alone, they come with a car full of stuff and give her the perfect doll. Momo tries to play with her, but the doll says the same things over and over again. She only wants to get more clothes and accessories. Finally, Momo gives up and gets bored, which never happened to her before.

I think that this story is quite significant as it says a lot about our social and cultural behavior today.

Q “ Specifically in works like cUMENI or The Tribuna of the Uffizi, what do you try to transmit/denounce?

A “cUMENI combines two seemingly different approaches to depicting women: the history of European painting and modern pop culture. The word cUMENI plays in the Czech language plays with the words art and gaping. In this project, I critically examine how modes of representation distort our perception of women. The Barbie doll plays the role of a historical icon in recreations of world-famous paintings.
The presented ideal manipulates a woman’s concept of her body and creates an artificial identity. This model reduces a woman to an object of desire and visual pleasure and has a negative effect on her self-image.

As traditionally recognized media; paintings sanction the male gaze, which would be considered voyeurism in other contexts.
Using the historical painting as a stage, with a female icon represented by the modern Barbie, I want to show the similarities between stereotypical representation in the past and in the present time. I am also interested in how playing with artificial mass-produced toys influences the youngest generation. What ideals are they identifying with? What consequences does it imply for their development? With cUMENI I want to inspire contemplation and reconsideration of the visual culture and its impact on the formation of identity and gender relations.

Q“ And what about your work 1959?

A “ 2009 marks the 50th anniversary since Ruth Handler designed the Barbie doll. I was thinking: How strange, that the doll did not age since then? She still looks as fresh as in the late 50s; a symbol of never aging beauty. So I decided to confront the idealized image of the Barbie Doll, the symbol of successful consumerism, with the everyday reality. I asked myself how would a person, would live the life of the character of e perfect consumer in her fifties. I focused on the gap between the dream, the prefab ideal of consumerism, and the real process of aging and deterioration. There is a photograph in the 1959 series, where Barbie is celebrating her birthday with a huge cake in her apartment. In my project, she does not look like Cinderella, but rather as a middle-aged woman she is supposed to be. Her body is affected and transformed by the reality of her life. She is obsessively shopping and overconsuming the products of the never-ending sales and media spectacle. While obeying the rules to become the perfect consumer, she turns into an absurd character fulfilling the imperative to enjoy!

“Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine from a very early age to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and a serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible.

Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society 1952

Q – There are many other artworks not related to Babies nor dolls, but to women. For example Her Hair, where you show your creations developed with hair. Tell us a bit about this project.

A “ In the project “Her Hair, I have worked with female hair using various media such as photography, installation, and animation. It explores my identity in the relationship to the outer world. The perspective of my body and my personal experience is the starting point of my exploration. I use the feminine attributes to deconstruct our images of identity and cultural conventions.

I see the hair as a mediator between my own body, the outside, and myself. The hair is part of my identity, something familiar, but it also has its own life. It is growing and expanding into the space. In the project “Her Hair”, I want to stretch the possibilities of the physical limits of hair. The underlying content focuses on the psychological aspects of physical experience and the search for emotional closeness and connection.

The perspective of my body and my personal experience is the starting point of my exploration. I use the feminine attributes to deconstruct our images of identity and cultural conventions.

Q “ What are you currently working on? And are there any future projects?

A “ One of the projects I am currently working on is The Tribuna of the Uffizi recreating a painting by Johann Zoffany from 1772-8. It portrays the Uffizi Gallery in Florence with the major paintings and sculptures from the renaissance and antiquity. It is a very complex project; because I am re-staging every single painting in the picture and afterwards  I will recreate the whole piece in 3D. The final presentation will be a large-scale photograph. Zoffan’s painting can be used as annillustration of the eighteenth-century idea of the “masterpiece”. Zoffany is creating a conceptual framework to parallel the classical ancient nd renaissance traditions. He is trying to justify the idea of cultural continuity. By replacing the human figures in the paintings with contemporary toys, I am adding a new layer of reference to deconstruct the idea of a masterpiece.

Q “ Your works are exhibited to the public in the flicke’s account from MILDEART, what is exactly MILDEART?

A “MILDEART is a loose name, which combines my and my husband’s work. It derives from our last name Milde. We are collaborating on most of our projects. Each of us has an individual art practice, but we are always conceptually and practically helping each other. We also have some projects where we are “officially” working together.

Q “ Are currently any other exhibitions/galleries where we can find your artworks?

A “ During this month my husband and I  are participating in a one-month work-in-progress residence at the Queens Art Center in New York. We work on a project called Looking for Home that deals with the theme of consumerism and mechanisms of disposal. We will create an apartment room furnished solely with furniture found during the period of one month on the streets of New York. It will be followed by a group show in May at the same location. I was also featured in the March issue of the Godele Magazine in Belgium. The article has 6 pages with large-size photos of my cUMENI.

Q “ What is your personal opinion about the current situation of Contemporary Art and artist? How do you see the Contemporary Art market?

A- This is a very complex issue, with a wide range of angles. I had the possibility to get the know some of the mechanisms in the art market and I would say that the experience was rather controversial. I think that is very important to differentiate between the creation of art, the presentation, and the market. Each of them has specific rules and problems. It is a very competitive and selective system.

A collector wants to be a curator, a curator wants to be an artist, and an artist wants to marry a collector.

by Natalia Liquiñano