Otto Placht: Peru...stories from the third shore

Date: 08.07 - 03.08.2021

OTTO PLACHT
"Peru...stories from the Third Shore"
exhibition celebrating 200 years of Peruvian independence

In July 2021, the celebrations of 200 years of independence from Spanish rule culminate in Peru, and our gallery hosts a thematic exhibition "Peru - Stories from the Third Shore" by the Czech academic painter Otto Placht, whose second home is the Peruvian Amazon. He created the exhibited paintings until the end of June on the (third) shore of Lake Yarinacocha in his Amazon studio and brought them to Prague just four days before the opening.
This is his latest work and the paintings are also quite unique in that he uses almost exclusively natural materials for painting. His colours are mainly a broth made from the bark of Amazonian trees, such as caoba, which the Indians call pucutti, essences from Amazonian plants, leaves and fruits, or fine mud.

The paintings themselves are inspired mainly by visions from the ceremonies of the ayahuasca and the cycle of life of the Amazon rainforest in whose womb they were born.  Placht captures the world of the most diverse allegories on the canvas, in which ancient Amazonian mythology and Christianity intertwine with cosmology and various symbols and archetypes of the collective unconsciousness.
The paintings tell stories from the third shore, which is outside the time and space where the author himself enters during his artistic creations and also the shamans during the ceremony. They remember past events that they do not remember otherwise and predict the future that results from them.… They compose time from pieces floating in the void as needed and pleasing. They open the consciousness of the return of the spirit to the eternal moment. They tell incredible stories of secret knowledge, the command of which is silence… Time itself is a river with two shores, which can exist without water, but not without a shore.

In the paintings we can also find fragments of Don Javier's narrative from Cesar Calvo's book "Tres Mitades de Ino Moxo". Stories dating back to 60 million years, when the world was just ashes and Pachakamaite, the god of Ashaninka, created the first woman, the beautiful Kaametza. From her rib came the man Narrowe, with whom she immediately made love, and in connection with the bliss of orgasm began the light of the world, the sun of the jungle world, from the beginning of the forest universe.

This very unique exhibition, which traveled to Bohemia from the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, will be complemented by a rich accompanying program:

▪ 8.7. - 18:00 - VERNISSAGE
with a musical performance by the international band Rimao & Los Triollos - musicians from Peru, Chile, Colombia and Spain, which was created especially for the occasion of this exhibition.
The opening will take place under the auspices of the Peruvian embassy with the participation of Ambassador Eduardo Rivoldi.

▪ 15.7. - 18:30 - Artist talk

▪ 21.7. - 17:30 - lecture on Ayahuasca and shamanism of the Peruvian Amazon.
Anthropologists Marek Halbich and Lucie Remešová
(Faculty of Humanities, Charles University)

▪ 28.7. - 19:00 - FIESTAS PATRIAS
We will celebrate the 200th anniversary of Peruvian independence with a big concert of the band Rimao & Los Triollos
There will also be video presentations by eight Peruvian artists from Cusco, Lima and the Amazonian Pucallpa.

▪ 3.8. from 18:00 - DERNISÁŽ
Closing ceremony of the exhibition

In addition to the above-mentioned events, Alice Růžičková's documentary The Painter of the Jungle from 2000, which maps the artist's life in the Peruvian Amazon, will be screened in the lobby during the exhibition.