I reduced the diameter of Earth

director: Lumír Hladík

original title: Zmenšil jsem průměr Země

year: 1977

running time: 2 min.

synopsis

The action art events of Czech artists in the 1970s and 1980s took place outside the realm of public art events. Their reach was purely community, and in the case of Lumír Hladík, even almost solely personal. Perhaps that is why Hladík was provoked by the idea of a "monumental" act, which was to be nothing less than an attempt to reduce the diameter of the earth.

biography

Since 1981, Lumír Hladík has lived in Canada where he creates works on the border between conceptual art, action art, drawing, and video. However, the beginnings of his work date back to the 1970s when action art was created on the margins of the Czech art scene. Lumír Hladík was an active member in the body art circle alongside Petr Štembera, Jan Mlčoch and Karel Miler, but he bonded more with his friend Jiří Kovanda through the civility of his own action art. Hladík was among the few who actually documented his action art through film, with many of the events taking form as temporary interventions within the landscape. These recordings, which were originally shot on 8 mm colour film, were recently digitised in the National Film Archive and accompanied with the artist’s own explanations.