Disaster!
Zahorian & Van Espen / PRAGUE (Czech Republic)
05.09.2020 – 15.10.2020

ZAHORIAN & VAN ESPEN Prague | SOPHIE TAPPEINER Vienna
SUMO | The Odd Year
International gallery co-op Prague

Framing a situation
by giving glory to a hazy moment
5 cm above the ground, stop
Within an uncertain time vacuum,
spiraling down,
losing height, stop
Your little personal tragedies, shared,
lived, by proxy
Seems oddly familiar
to me
Even though there’s more
than meets the eye,
you see only…
stop

Disaster!

What does it mean to enclose a complex situation in time within a spatially limited rectangular field? There seems to be no available capacity to unfold a narrative. Despite an abstract potential to depict the passage of time, what is mostly presented is but a singular moment in a longer, undisclosed process. Time freeze. A single film frame. Perhaps even a skipping record. Regardless of this apparent limitation of the medium, our visual literacy, in conjunction with the memory of personal experiences, directly spawns a series of mental projections of various feasible scenarios, predating and following that one particular moment right in front of our eyes. So then, let’s say that every static image inherently possesses the potential to move across various timelines.

Back. Ascending.

SOMO pills falling through the net of historical circumstances into the opaque pond of PBP’s pharmapornographic discipline apparatus, plunging so much deeper than they would if dropped from the top of the highest conceivable panopticon. How high are you? How high are you right now? Is there a way to find applicable measurements?

You leave behind the levitating pitch-dark monolith somewhere in outer space (its sharp edges no longer pose any danger). You lose all potential destinations or departure points. Picking up a bone, and realizing a previously hidden ability to master your own conditions by protracting each of your limbs with a cyborgian extension, no longer feels achievable. Are you falling downwards or upwards? And does it even have any kind of importance?

Living by falling. The word “endlessly” stayed behind. Elsewhere.

Back.

The slimy regularly shaped tentacles, covered in red, are over your mother’s precious carpet, or maybe it’s a table-cloth. The dark liquid flows through the little cracks in joints you always thought impenetrable. Your birthday surprise is indeed quite surprising. And she’s falling, expressionless, a bit bored possibly, maybe just because there is a clear perspective of landing on all fours, even though who knows what the glowing light in the background could bring. Who knows any more what is sunrise and what is a forest fire?

Back. Together.

What’s the measure of importance while judging risk to your calm, stable mind? Do you get stuck in the endless newsfeed? Is your body here, yet thoughts linger among protesters in the streets? Are your mouth and nostrils covered? Was that your favorite cake? Or you just don’t care? Are you falling upwards or downwards? Spiraling…all around the place, and the time… Or just levitating, without any sensation of motion. When you thought it was only five centimeters till you hit the ground, when the light at the end of the tunnel was just within reach, suddenly it’s all gone. Can you adapt? Can you cry? Let’s weep together for a moment, shall we?

Back.

Laughter.

There are no little disasters. Even though the little ones can occupy your mind only for a brief moment, long enough to forget about the larger ones. And whose fault is that?!

Don’t judge me. Back. Stop.

Curated by Jen Kratochvil

Courtesy of the artists, ZAHORIAN & VAN ESPEN and SOPHIE TAPPEINER
Photocredit Ondrej Polak