Fragile Power
2/2023, NO NATION Tangential Unspace Art Lab, Chicago, US
The performance was the last of a free series realized in the period 2021 – 2023 (along with the performances “Dejection”, 4/2021, Studio Alta, Prague, CZ; “What Is Lost, What Is Gained”, 5/2021, Photogether Gallery, Zlín, CZ; “Maybe This World Is Another Planet’s Hell” (12/2022) and “Maybe This World Is Another Planet’s Paradise” (1/2023), Gallery of Fine Arts in Náchod – Small Gallery (GVUN – Malá), Náchod, CZ; “The Rules of Paradise Are Never Nice”, 1/2023, 13festivalen, Gothenburg, SE).
In this series, I tried to process a difficult period in my personal life through art. The environments in which the actions were realized provided each of them with a unique framework and atmosphere. The performance at “NO NATION” in Chicago was an output from my residency in this art center. I worked with elements from my everyday life in NO NATION (e.g. I was dressed in pajamas, drinking tea, watching a film projected on the room wall, and I went out with the audience to the courtyard, where the local metro was passing nearby). At the same time, I used elements unrelated to the given environment to make the situation more unusual and presented myself as a wounded and vulnerable individual, who, however, retains his fragile power even in a difficult situation.
“An Evening of Performance Art/e Acción” curated by: Lorene Bouboushian and William Amaya Torres