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The Red Library
(marker on wall, Jeleni gallery, Prague, november 2005)
The very nature of interpersonal relationships is currently undergoing radical changes. The virtualization of relationships caused by globalization and the Internet inspires people to create their own worlds while at the same time encouraging the need for more physical interpersonal interaction. Based on the transforming structure of labor, familial social groupings are replaced by professional hierarchical tribes. Even as they feign objective professional functioning, these enclaves depend upon connections, sympathies, advantages, and alliances. It is this particular dual character of the personal and the professional in the artist community as a hermetic society that is the basis and inspiration for The Red Library.
For the exhibition in Jeleni Gallery we created a hierarchy/chart of artists and curators from the Czech art scene. We grouped these men into chronologies based on imaginary scenarios of sexual situations that could occur between us and them. Thus, a subjective re-ordering of the Czech art scene was created. This ordering groupedĘ together people who normally belong into different categories. The criteria used for this restructuring were strictly based on an aesthetic evaluation of the artist's appearance, sexual appeal, and erotic moods, which the specific men did (or did not) inspire in us. We ignored their artistic and intellectual qualities as well as their position on the art scene entirely.
The Red Library does not only reflect upon inter-subjectivity and human interaction, it also formulates and causes this interaction. The Red Library's transgression into life, the transformation of attitudes and relations of the judged men, among themselves and towards us, are essential parts of the whole project. Relationships transformed in this manner are marked by discomfort and ridicule. Moreover, this demonstration also indicates a lack of professional strategy on our part, since this project could result in real disadvantages for us and our career.
Anytime anything
(men that set me on fire with a glance)
Secret objects of desire
(men I play hard to get just pro forma)
A momentary crush
(men that can get me after five mojitoes)
Sex out of decency
(men I surrender to by pure inadvertency)
Make a virtue of necessity
(men I would sleep with only to increase my self-confidence)
Desperate resignation
(men I would give myself up to only on a deserted island)
Biological duty
(men I would have intercourse with only under the threat of the doom of mankind)
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