Prague, March 16 – April 20, 2017, http://www.dscgallery.com
The large scale interior architecture-like installations from glass and stainless steel appeared to me most of all as a celebration of the capitalist-realism architecture of office towers and business districts. The scale was monumental, larger-than-human. The surfaces were smooth, reflective. Some transparent and some opaque, all set up in just the right angles to each other.
It was a geometric harmony of surfaces: A stage for a human actor to perform his role of a manager, office worker, window cleaner or building maintenance worker. Or, as in this case, gallery visitor. I walked along the planes and surfaces intersecting the space. I marveled at my own image as I observed myself in the role assigned to me by the space.
The transparent and airy open office spaces have their magnificent charm and beauty, but they also came to represent a certain fixed order of the office-as-factory where cognitive labor at an industrial scale takes place, an order that is as opaque or transparent as the window blinds and public relations executives allow.
Did the artists indeed want to express this seductive coolness that can start to feel oppressive once it is all-encompassing? This time I just wrote from experience. I did not read any exhibition-related text. I am not familiar with the artist’s prior work. Nevertheless, this is what I felt from the materials and their configuration in space as they surrounded me.
