Modern Art Oxford is pleased to present the first solo UK exhibition by Eva Kotátková. Working with a group of performers, the artist creates a series of tableaux throughout the upper galleries; each work presents a performer connected with an object to form a ‘living’ part of a sculpture.
A giant speech organ commands the space of the Upper Gallery, creating a playground, gym, theatre and circus mixed environment for a group of performers to enact poses and temporary body constellations. The performers interact with an eclectic range of objects in a playful navigation of language and experience of the everyday.
In the Middle Gallery visitors encounter a more intimate performance where an actor in the guise of a professor delivers a lecture that compares traditional forms of storytelling to that of Samuel Becket which have more of a performative element.
Exploring philosophical ideas surrounding language and performance, the narrative is based on a script written by Kotátková’s father, a former Professor of Philosophy at the Charles University in Prague and former visiting scholar in Oxford.
Kotátková’s work develops through collaboration and performance to explore the language of sculpture and to reevaluate ‘normal’ situations. Her tools include video, photography, found objects and drawings as records of her own performances.
Kotátková’s works are proposals for living in an awkward age; blueprints for difficulties that must be overcome in order to explore limits of human relationships and behaviour. Objects become mediators which borrow human voices and tell personal stories as well as literary narratives of human isolation and otherness.