EVA KOŤÁTKOVÁ AND DOMINIK LANG

Eva Koťátková is interested in topics of difference, empathy and sharing as well as discipline, norms and power structures that surround, shape or deform the individual. She often focuses on the situation of groups or individuals that are for various reasons excluded, discriminated, silenced. In her ongoing series Theatre of speaking objects she tries to find alternative means of expression for those who are not able to communicate and integrate in the standard way. More recently she has been active in the animal rights field and is currently developing a syllabus of a new school subject that is based on the concept of unlearning, empathy and activism. She is a co-founder of a platform Institute of Anxiety that sees anxiety as a result of social, political, economical and ecological forces. It argues that both in attempt for structural changes and system critique, but also in diverse acts of sharing, there is potential for positive change.

Dominik Lang is a sculptor who, from the very beginning of his praxis, has reflected on the ways artworks are presented, taking into account the history of the exhibited work, the social, political and economical context that surrounds it as well as the architecture to which it is situated. In 2011 Dominik Lang represented the Czech Republic at the 54th Venice Biennale, turning the Czechoslovak pavilion into his Sleeping city installation. This installation also started his ongoing series of interventions and alterations of figurative sculptures of other authors. Some of them Lang enlarged and allowed visitors to walk through their interior, others were cut into pieces in order to recompose them, changing their pose and making  them move; stand up from the pedestal, move around the room etc. Dominik Lang is the head of the Sculpture studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.