The title of this site-specific exhibition for the White Cube alludes to the marketing term “sales funnel”, which refers to the effort to push a product through the widest possible channel to its destination in the shortest possible way. The bitter current situation of rising prices, growing geopolitical conflicts, the omnipotence of the media alerting us to the global crises, on top of the constant balancing of the individual between procrastination and overwork, leads Jiří Pitrmuc towards a need to observe our routine activities which we gradually, as time passes and new technologies evolve, make easier for ourselves by using tools and machines. The author repeatedly asks himself, however, if this advancement is truly progress.
The blending of humans and machines and a fascination with the everyday are also the prin-cipal themes in the works of sculptor Ladislav Zívr (1909–1980). The rounded, organic shapes of his sculpture Woman with Microscope (Žena s mikroskopem, 1947), and Miner (Minér, 1948–1949) from the GMU collection, which Pitrmuc incorporated into his exhibition, depict figures connected to machines at work, and also capture that moment of concentration in which human and machine grow into a single organism. The artist also depicted women as scientists, which was revolutionary for his time. In the 50s, during the time of socialist realism, Zívr experienced a crisis. He sought respite by re-turning to nature. The sharp outlines of machines in his works thus started to be in conflict with other amorphous shapes. He reduced the machines to their most basic forms and, thanks to this, their depiction is timeless.
Pitrmuc’s works next to the sculptures of Zívr create a dialog in reaction to the current situation and offer the viewer a new perspective from which to regard the world we live in.
