The self and the promise
XVitra showroom
Artists
Lucie Rosenfeldová
Curators
Opening
Duration
This curator’s selection of videos by Céline Berger and Lucie Rosenfeldová is presented in a site-specific installation at the Vitra Showroom of luxury office furniture. The situation to which the artists draw attention in their works is based on the need for individuals to exert never-ending effort to improve their work performance, leading them to devoting all of their time to a single goal – perfection in their work performance – and then consequently becoming lost in the undefinable boundaries of working time.
Despite the positive prognoses made in the 1930s (by John Keynes), predicting a radical reduction in working hours over the course of the twentieth century, we are now witness to the fusing of what were previously separated as “leisure” and “working” hours. Although leisure time was conditional on working time, or, more precisely, it was based on the logical nature of work and the necessity to rest in order to achieve the desired work performance, the two were never so closely coalesced into one. Even before the end of the twentieth century, a reproach was voiced that “there is no free time which neither produces nor consumes commercial wealth” (André Gorz).
The situation to which the artists Céline Berger and Lucie Rosenfeldová draw attention in their works is based on the need for individuals to exert never-ending effort to improve their work performance, leading them to devoting all of their time to a single goal – perfection in their work performance – and then consequently becoming lost in the undefinable boundaries of working time. As a result, an individual always acts with the vision of some (no matter how abstract) result. All independent actions, gestures, and thoughts are thus logically subordinate to self-improvement efforts to better one’s work performance in a way that is senseless.
This exhibition is presented in the form of a site-specific installation of videos at a location, whose current catalogue designations are such as “Corso Karlin” and “Port Karolina”, which are apparently references to the future luxury and lofty nature of a neighbourhood that was just recently (preferably) overlooked.
artist talk: 4 October at 6 pm
after-party at Karlin Studis / Kasárna Karlín
