“´We are not looking for an allegory for the world, but rather we look for a world for this allegory.´ Said the Hyena. The Hyena controls everything, but it is trapped inside a system with given rules. The Hyena lives in the ZOO. It is evil and is not responsible for the fact that there are much greater and more natural evils in the world. The Bear. The Bear character is from a visible and clear world, where all forces, even the major ones, are subject to understood laws. But behind it lies another world. The world of bars, fibers, curves and whispering. The world of the Hyena. A world charged by ego and will to power. A world full of laughs and subtle intimations. The Hyena knows that it is easy to escape the cage, but laughs because it’s at home here.”
Ladislav Vondrák’s (*1975) videos and performances are defined by uncommon vigor and physicality. Themes such as empowerment, power, control and submission are communicated in them as allegories for being full of testosterone, pressure, sadism and masochism. This exhibition of Vondrák’s new videos, Backstroke, came about in collaboration with the Studio of Photography at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.
Jiří Ptáček
