USELESS | exhibition

An exhibition designed according to the criteria of uselessness, unworkability, inadaptability, and self-destructive obstinacy. Created by women artists who have the potential of being a disaster of epic proportions for curators and exhibition organizers. There exists a group of women artists to whom we have an ambivalent relationship. Their creations strike us as strange, incomprehensible, complicated – and at the same time fascinating. We have responded by categorically labeling their art with the seemingly offensive term “useless”, to which we can add “impracticable” and “unusable”.

Then we discovered that the concept of uselessness/unusability provides practically the only criterion for understanding art at a time when it is surrounded by incomprehension, and that it is rejected by the art world precisely for being inappropriate. These artists ignore the gallery’s technical capabilities, the laws of physics, the public mood, the mental processes of their loved ones or the intellectual constructs of curators and organizers, and take an idealistic approach to the possibilities of the contemporary exhibition industry. They almost always end up in conflict with the exhibition’s vision, and test the goodwill of the hosting organizations. They are constantly exploring what the world can handle: as if it was all their own personal experiment. And yet, we find not a trace of selfishness, just the immense effort at creating a miracle. 

U S E L E S S

prepared by useless team:
Darina Alster
Katerina Olivova
Blanka Jakubcikova
Pavla Scerankova
Sarka Mikeskova
Jana Kochanková
Klara Brichacková and Marie Stindlova
Lenka Klodova
Ivan Mecl
Spunk Seipel

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein