Eva Koťátková – Recongulation of the World

9. 5. 2018

from the series Theater of Speaking Objects, collage and drawing, 29,7×42 cm, 2013

Different time periods and different generations bring new issues. But what about the old ones – still present and still urgent issues? Foucault's analysis of repression and power is compulsory reading today, but the reasons why it was written still persist. The relations between the structured society and so-called anarchy are closely examined by Eva Koťátková.

To her, the human body is the home of hidden aggression, learnt patterns of behaviour, and defensive reflexes. Koťátková proves that individual problems are not problems of individuals, but the consequences of enforcement methods used by the society. She is not interested only into people, but gives a voice to animals, plants, organisms, and objects as well. With surprisingly radical illustrations, backed up by her research, Koťátková combines what was left of the avant-garde, the current, often feminist theories and activism to create large exhibition "machines" and small details. She cuts out pictures, glues clippings and draws pictures to make collages based on the psychoanalytic tradition, dreams, fragmentarization, deconstruction and construction and openly reminiscent of the Czech interwar avant-garde (Štýrský, Teige, and Toyen).

She also creates large installations and static performances where subtle changes of postures represent the stiffening of bodies in the globalized system of alienated or isolated work, rest, sleep, movement, time, and what we call the nature. These creations share a kind of subliminal theme – the concern over the established forms of art presentation, exhibitions and galleries that the author applies to areas of social engagement. The frustration of the artist meets the frustration of the activist. Eva Koťátková, together with Barbora Kleinhamplová, has been trying to cope with this long-standing problem by initiating the establishment of an institute dealing with the causes of social anxiety. The two artists see the anxiety not like a diagnosis that weakens the individual, but rather as a shared experience that can stimulate people. Various social initiatives and individuals spend so much energy to promote various ways of functioning in many fields that they do not have the strength to join forces in an interdisciplinary approach – and they often do not understand each other since they do not speak the same language. Together with her colleagues, Eva Koťátková seeks connect them so that art is not isolated from active behaviour, all alone in art institutions.

Text | Edith Jeřábková

IMAGES CAPTIONS

1 | from the series Theater of Speaking Objects, collage and drawing, 29,7×42 cm, 2013
2 | from the series Not How People Move but What Moves Them, photography, collage, 21×29,7cm, 2012
3 | House Arrest, photo © Jiří Thýn, 29,7×42 cm, 2009
4 | Me and Others, Me from Parts, performance documentation, 2018
5–8 | Stomach of the World, video frame, 46 minutes, 2017

#31 body

The image of the body can take many forms reflecting the never-ending human desire to create the imprints of ourselves. The theme of the body and corporeality has appeared in photography since the very beginning. But it does not include only the classic and much-repeated nude, already exhausted in its commercial and common academic forms. The body itself is the mortal frame of the human being and its physical existence, whose uniqueness and evanescence we are aware of although we often try to forget about it. The body is born, and it grows, matures and becomes an object or the initiator of amorous passion: the female body produces children, and the male body is involved in a sexual act. Then the human body gets older, gradually wastes away, experiences diseases and bodily injuries, and eventually ceases to exist like everything else in the cycle of time. Photography and photographers have a unique chance to capture or interpret all these phases. Plato’s conception of corporeality gave rise to the dichotomy of the “body” and “soul”. Once we identify them in our being, we can see the body as a primary form of life that fundamentally determines our being in the world and expresses who we really are. It would be interesting if our physical experience was given the same, if not higher, value like our thinking. The representation of the body is the representation of strength and weakness, and the associated social and cultural codes, including sexuality and gender types. In this magazine issue, we focus on author and photographic projects presenting the human body and nudity sometimes as an object, sometimes as a means to stimulate the viewer’s critical reflections on the current political, cultural, sexual, gender, and socio-economic issues.