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.

Useless newspaper from previous show (2012, download in PDF)

Useless group artists: Darina Alster, Kateřina Olivová, Blanka Jakubčíková,Karolína Kohoutková, Šárka Mikesková, Jana Kochánková, Klára Břicháčková, Marie Štindlová, Marie Hladíková and Lenka Klodová

Blanka Jakubčíková
Profligacy has driven me to suicide
I hang inside the country house
(my soul wanders Prague by the riverbank)
well – I guess it can’t be undone
my body will no longer come to life
I was pregnant with loving then
I know – I was not a nice person
(more of a witch, to tell the truth)
I was cruel – I beat men
and cut the roses in the parks of Prague
(nobody can help me anymore)
I was gentle and submissive, too
(a sweet girl from Krumlov)
I’ll do it again in my next life
and again end this living
-
Making a living from killing myself

past Useless:
USELESS IN BERLIN
USELESS IN PRAGUE
 

USELESS on Facebook

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