koffl next back Author : Jan B. Hurych
Title : ART-TICKLES
Essay: Foreword



How it happened that ArtForum met Hurontaria.

I guess everyone was once in similar situation. You are attempting to achieve something and while you are trying all there is, you just cannot start the things going. And when you don't know what else to do, you decide to try an experiment which you don't really believe in, but there is simply nothing better at hand. And suddenly, your troubles are over. It was exactly such gathering of coincidences that got together the virtual gallery ArtForum in Prague and Jan Hurych, the countryman who is the publisher of the web-magazine Hurontaria, somewhere on the shores of Huron Lake.

It happened last year in spring when we at ArtForum just ended the cycle of virtual exhibitions of Czech graphic artists and were ready to start the one with glass artists. We felt that the profiles of artists - some of whom played the same role in art as did Jágr, Navrátilová and Železný in the world of sport - should be complemented with some convenient texts. The problem of course was that we had only a vague idea what should such texts contain. So we turned to several kunsthistorians and newspapermen and asked them to try their hands on Internet. Some of them refused right away, the others promised, but subsequently disappeared without a trace.

As it became obvious that we wouldn't find convenient "reviewer" right here, in Czech Republic, we told ourselves we should try it abroad. So we sent e-mails to our countrymen who contributed regularly to Czech periodicals. We were surprised that many of them not only answered, but some of them were even willing to cooperate with some unknown gallery, hundreds and thousands of miles far away from them. We agreed they send us the samples of their texts and after two weeks, the situation became quite clear. The text written by Jan was exactly what we needed. Ever since, every month we have been looking forward to read his Art-tickles (as he calls them), all of us - that is our artists, the friends of the gallery and even the readers of Czech Internet periodicals (Neviditelný Pes, iDnes).

We hope these essays by Jan, published here in non-traditional, electronic form of book, will talk to their readers as well as they did when they accompanied and introduced to the world of Internet our Czech glass-making elite of artists.


Petr Kraus,
Director of the Virtual Gallery ArtForum,
Prague, Czech Republic
http://www.gallery.cz



Dedication


I would like to dedicate this book to all Czech glass-makers whose works of art are the best ambassadors of Czech nation I have ever met,


Jan B. Hurych,
http://hurontaria.baf.cz
Kincardine, Canada



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