Open Realism
Open realism – words that best describe the compositional principle permeating the works of Marek Piaček. In the heart of this artistic attitude lies an open participation in the present, in what is now. The openness should be understood in the sense that the composer makes no judgements about the reality and that he has no prejudices against it.
As a result, Marek Piaček’s works often juxtapose the serious with the banal, putting it into a bizarre, sometimes even absurd context. All genres and forms of music stand next to each other as equal manifestations of reality transformed into their new appearances, in which the origin and the value of material loses all relevance. It is this very open, non-judgemental attitude that clashes with our notion of contemporary music.
European art has for long time been dealing with the issues of removing the division between art and everyday life, of kitsch, and of liberating the work of art from the sterile environment of concert halls and galleries. Marek Piaček’s open realism seeks to respond to this development and to offer an individual solution. The composer shrugs off the burden of the past, eschews the question of originality and progress, and he relinquishes the stereotypes of evaluating art. Instead of focusing on the value of a particular type of music, he lets himself be inspired by it. When two elements or phenomena, however disparate, meet in a single moment of time, they immediately become a part of the surrounding world. This realism of the moment focuses on the happening both around and inside us. It is not just restricted to an impersonal documentation of the outside world, but it also points to the exceptional richness and multidimensional character of true reality awareness.
The works of Marek Piaček thus often embrace elements of serious music, pop, music for films, dance music, world music or urban folklore, which essentially serve as mere “material”. These elements – quotations, motifs or whole songs – are neither imposed on us, nor are they intended to mock music; instead, they become a legitimate part of a new work of art. This music is an event in the true sense of the word, an event that takes part, with no strings attached, in what is now and captivates the listener as an equal participant of the artistic process. We are thus dealing with an open work of art destined for the “common” listener who appreciates its spontaneity and richness, as well as for the learned listener who perceives the rational operations, elaborate design, and echoes of compositional techniques and masterworks of the past.