LIVING SCULPTURE / performance
https://vimeo.com/401707611
This action’s title comments on the performer’s artistic expression, on the background of the given location and on the situation within the art scene. The location being a tourist-mafioso hell (Wenceslas square and its surroundings), the striders here are consuming souvenirs, hot-dogs, drugs, sex and other experiences. Just a few years ago, we wouldn’t find any of the street artists here, the so-called buskers, because busking was forbidden in the streets of Prague then. Buskers eke out the little money for their daily bread through street performances – of more or less quality. An artist „profesionally“ dedicated to art creation (who has an academical background, exhibits his artwork and is a part of the general artistic operation) will, through performance, earn very bad money (none). Probably with a lot more trouble than a skillful busker. There may also appear a contrast between the necessary theatricality of the busker (they want to impress as many people as possible, to earn as much salary) and the artistic gesture of the performer, for whom every performance is a deep internal experience through which he often dismantles the boundaries of his behaviour and tries to level with the world. My performance looks like a busker’s show. I am an artist, appearing in a role of a busker. The role the busker had chosen for himself is „The Protester“ – through him he’ll try to raise money. Through protest and a naive call for freedom. I do ironically commodify revolt and make it into a marketable spectacle. A metaphor of the artistic practice, pointing on the artistic always searching for creative freedom, but needs to make a living at the same time, is obvious here. I circumvent the art market and the process of paying for art through a gallerist and a buyer and for my artwork I receive just the amount that the spectator deems appropriate. The average salary throughout the performance was 180 CZK/hour.