EXHIBITION REVIEWS ART IN AMERICA 157
lyrical videos, photographs and objects by Czech artistMatěj
Smetana. Although Perjovschi and Smetana are at opposite poles
in terms of aesthetic approaches, both touch on sociopolitical and
environmental themes while conlating past and present worlds.
Together, their works suggest metaphors for the resilience and
power of the human imagination or, alternatively, the imagination’s
cyclical, often destructive, imprint on history.
Known for his spontaneous drawing performances, Perjovschi,
who represented Romania in the 1999 Venice Biennale, aggres-
sively covered the pristine white walls of MeetFactory’s principal
gallery with graitilike texts, cartoon drawings and newspaper
clippings. Mordant references to the war in Ukraine and the Syr-
ian refugee crisis were handwritten in large letters alongside clever
wordplay, such as “Gang bank bang” and “art is not fair.” Painted on
the walls, these mural-esque narratives suggested prehistoric cave
paintings, testifying to the age-old power of visual expression.
Smetana’s disparate works, made in the past two years and
scattered throughout the back galleries, were more ambiguous
in their commentary. Playing at the end of a corridor was the
eerie videoViper, which consists of an animation of a lying
snake. Its body rhythmically undulates like wings as it rises
over a bank of billowy clouds in a blue sky. A series of digitally
manipulated photographs presented other hybrids, including a
rhinoceros morphing into a unicorn. A grimmer augury in the
series pictured a dog killed by a gunshot lying on a cube of dirt.
Other images broughtto mind earlier civilizations or objects
culled from archaeological digs, such as a handmade hammer.
A poetic summation of Smetana’s concerns about the
destructive efects of humanity on nature was efected through
a mesmerizing series of four videos titled “heater I.” In these
works, twigs appear in close-up against a white background,
their leaves gently stirring, seemingly agitated by drafts or
breezes. Upon close scrutiny, one realizes that the twigs are
tied to nearly invisible monoilament and are being dangled
like marionettes. In astatement accompanying the exhibition, the
curators ask, “Do we live in a civilization, or rather in a jungle?”
Perhaps the answer is “unequivocally both.”
—Sarah S. Kingvideo fantasy involving lamboyant, luidly gendered characters in
a bucolic landscape. A video by Myanmar artist Po Po, meanwhile,
documents the response of ordinary people to VIP markers he
placed on bus-stop benches in his home country, long under strict
military rule, and the relatively less restricted Bangladesh.
Focusing on harsh realities in Papua New Guinea’s Bougainville
Island, artist Taloi Havini (Hakö people) and photographer Stuart
Miller display poignant portraits, usually set in landscapes, of “Blood
Generation” individuals forcibly deprived of land and cultural heri-
tage due to intrusive Australian mining interests. he duo’s close-up
shot of a black ighter waiting on the ropes, his gaze steady, suggests
pride and determination even in the face of likely defeat.
During the triennial’s opening in November, Cambodian-born
Anida Yoeu Ali, raised in Chicago, appeared in costume to supple-
ment the humorous photos and videos on view recording her “Bud-
dhist Bug” project—in which she moves through the streets and
open markets of her homeland in a giant safron-colored garment-
contraption that makes her look likea monkish version of Lewis
Carroll’s hookah-smoking caterpillar. Signiicantly grimmer was
a 12-hour performance in which Indonesia’s Melati Suryodarmo,
trained in both Butoh dance and (under Marina Abramović) dura-
tional performance, slowly ground chunks of charcoal into powder
by hand. Transformation, both external and internal, seems to be an
inescapable theme for artists from long-closed or long-colonized
areas now facing a lightning transition to the 21st century.
As always in such exhibitions, some bizarre culture clashes
occur. A video of statuesque New Zealand-born artist Angela Tiatia
lying on the loor in a black leotard and spike heels, eyes riveted on
the viewer as she repeatedly “walks” up a wall with long tattooed
legs, plays just steps away from a video by Köken Ergun showing an
annual ritual in which Turkish Shiite men weep over the death in
battle of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Husayn ibn Ali in 680
a.d. he juxtaposition evokes numerous religious, transcultural, femi-
nist and geopolitical issues. But such incongruity relects, of course,
the complex, diicult and enthralling nature of globalism itself.
—Richard Vine
PRAGUE
DANPERJOVSCHIAND
MATEJ SMETANAˇ
MeetFactory
MeetFactory stands at the end of a dirt road in Smíchov, an old
industrial quarter of Prague. Wedged between a highway and active
train tracks lined with derelict train cars, the nonproit multidisci-
plinary contemporary art space, founded in 2001, occupies a newly
renovated building, which was formerly a glass factory. he robust-
ness of the center, which encompasses several exhibition spaces, a
theater, a concert hall and an artist residency program, is indicative
of the city’s burgeoning cutting-edge art scene.
Recently on view was “15,000 Years of Sameness,” an intriguing
two-person exhibition comprised of a site-speciic mixed-medium
installation by Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi and 15 haunting,
View of Dan
Prejovschi’s mixed-
medium installation
Weekend News,2015,
at MeetFactory.