Vernisáž A Democratic Intervention / Sex Sells Politics

Do 30.9.2017 bude v Galerii Navrátil, Vítkova 15, Praha 8, přístupná velmi zajímavá výstava vídeňské umělkyně působící pod jménem Ona B.

„Ona B. za svého pobytu v Istanbulu našla v jednom z istanbulských bazarů unikátní soubor plakátů k lechtivým tureckým soft-porno filmům, které se ještě počátkem osmdesátých let běžně vyráběly a v kinech také prezentovaly a právě pomocí těchto plakátů i propagovaly. Umělkyně nejen tato díla po svém upravila, zrenovovala, domalovala, překryla, ale hlavně doplnila zcela svébytnými texty, takřka hesly, a vytvořila tak třetí rovinu sdělení. Ona B. ovšem dvojice používá pro zcela změněná poselství, související s celou řadou jiných, dnešních realit. Od komentování postavení současné ženy ve stále sešněrovanější turecké současnosti, po zcela nové antiglobální kritické postoje, přímo navazující na západní kritickou realitu a i v Turecku proniknuvší hnutí Occupy .

Vytváří tak vtipné orgie nadsázky, ironie s prvky parodie a dvojsmyslů. Celek však divák vnímá v dusném prostředí rudé barvy, obnažených těl, prosvítajících původních názvů a jmen dnes již zatracených (a často ztracených interpretů – viz Orhan Pamuk..). To vše pak balí do Wagnerovských textů.“ (z textu ČT).

Text k aktuální výstavě v angličtině:

ONA B.’s pictorial oeuvre has also been based on the analysis of political power relations, women and popular culture for several years.
In addition to her performative productions, the artist deals with imagery from cinema advertising. It creates a world of images, which appears familiar and nevertheless seems alien.
In her current works, ONA B. takes up the pictorial raw material of the advertising “Kinowelt” (cinematic world) and delivers her artistic means of overpainting and linguistic displacement and disquiet into the world of these images, which is their current meaning and by your reflection of the situation in the US and other countries in their democratically vulnerable countries, such as Turkey.

ONA B. uses vintage cinema ads acting as propaganda material, the shaping and driving power of which the artist puts into discussion during these politically turbulent times.
Sylvia Kristel, a soft porn actress from the seventies, sits on the plaited peacock chair from the Emmanuelle film, or Cicciolina, who was a porn star in Italy. But suddenly they also wear the artist’s face and new titles give a new meaning.

For the most recent presentation, the painstakingly reworked scenes were printed on canvas and can be seen as exhibits in Gallery Navratil in Prague.

For the recent presentation in Venice, the painstakingly reworked scenes were printed again on paper and could be viewed as posters. Thus the images draw a loop from the cinema-adverising-poster to a painting and back to their original function as advertisment, but now they are bearers of political and feminist messages. Recently, they were seen as overpainted media collages on canvas in a former cinema (the famous STAR cinema in the Burggasse in Vienna as the present exhibition venue), and then in Venice during the Biennale opening week the „Flawless Women“ were surprisingly found in the streets around and as well in the office of the Communist Party of Venice where the artist held a reception.

It is clear: in this way the images change as well as our perception of them. They do not fulfill the promise of obtaining certainty as to the content, because they are ambiguous. Rather, the „Coup of the Faultless Women on Labour Day“ leaves the audience wonderingly insecure and amused.

In addition to her own family history in the survival of the monarchy and national socialism, her approach is based on research and travel, which lead her to question cultural and political phenomena. ONA B. gives female already deceased family members, her task as witnesses of the story.

She puts her portrait photos both into the cinema ads as well as into her own. The resulting mixture of realities converts them into a complex, yet simple-seeming, easily accessible image language. The acknowledgment of various realities is a major concern, especially since it equates the ideals of freedom.

Walter Benjamin warned that a work of art would be deprived of its aura in the age of its technical reproducibility.
ONA B.’s series „Coup of the Faultless Women on Labour Day“ plays with this proverbial victim from several directions and on parallel timelines.
ONA B. revamped Turkish softporno filmplates from the 1980s. She photographed them today and printed them on canvases and then re-entered the design with a violent gesture. With color, photography and writing, she composes a media collage and creates an original with a new aura.

In these pictures, ONA B. combines slogans from the „movement“, which began in 2017 in Washington by protesting against Donald Trump, with the provocative poses of the slightly clothed ladies from the filmplates.
And that is how they look: the rebellious young women who have made their way from a commodity to a selfconfident human being.
With the medium of color and writing ONA B. has given these women back their dignity and made them heroines of today.