Marmotour

Vladimíra Večeřová and Petra Lelláková are currently developing their second cycle of joint short videos, in which they themselves act as the main actors. After an initial series of short video performances called “You Can”, which was a kind of documentation of situations or instructions of “doing something with combined forces”,a loose continuation follows. Although the format is similar, the artists relate more to the environment in which the events are set or to the props used. The main role shows the two characters of the authors disguised in very simple costumes. Civility thus retreats in favor of the playfulness or rituality of their actions. Performances usually consist of a simple gesture or movement. The theme of classical sculpture runs very freely throughout the events. The authors place it against the background of their own performative activity. The thematic thread begins in the environment of the famous Carrara quarry, where marble of the highest quality was mined to serve as material for the production of many iconic sculptures. The authors work with the spectacular environment of the quarry as a strong visual and contextual background, on the basis of which they perform characteristically simple gestures. They let their figures disappear from the stone horizon, merge inside the cold sculptural material or, on the contrary, enliven it with their physical presence. As if with a free-cutting event, the events continue in urban conditions. Petra and Vladimíra take replicas of canonical examples from the history of art and, with humor and sensitivity towards subtle visual observations, place it in situations that somewhat lighten the historical burden. These events can be read in contrast with academic rigidity and seriousness, or in connection with the previously used context of the marble quarry – a place where still unprocessed natural material lay for centuries. The artists also work with paintings where the bodies and sculptures are housed in a strange gear, in which neither the rules of gravity nor the hierarchical relations between the pedestal, the statue, the human body and the author are clear at first glance. They play with the viewer’s perspective and deliberately confuse them. Far more than stagnant living sculptures in the streets, their performances involve the invasion of strange figures who bring a subtle conflict into the occupied space.
Alžběta Bačíková