ephemeropteræ 2016/#3 – Babi Badalov | Vít Havránek
ephemeropteræ 2016/#3. Photo: eSel.at - Lorenz Seidler
Babi Badalov – Bonjour, je suis réfugié politique
Vít Havránek – From Critical Institution to Institutional Therapy
Babi Badalov, in his lecture-performance-installation, traces the nomad life of an artist (or traveler, migrant, refugee). Bonjour, je suis réfugié politique reflects not only on the struggling adaptation period of cultural integration, but primarily turns the protagonist into a prisoner of language. Badalov plays with linguistic notions in order to emphasize larger geo-political questions, experiments with words and writes obscure poetry, mixing languages and images of different cultures. His work often is dedicated to linguistic explorations researching the limits of language and the borders it imposes upon its users and based on his personal experience of linguistic inconveniences while travelling. In foreign countries, we often come across words written in the same alphabet as ours, but with different meaning, sound or pronunciation. His visual poetry often takes the form of a diary, created every day through a combination of his own linguistic research of manipulated pictorial material, mainly with political content.
Vít Havránek – From Critical Institution to Institutional Therapy
Since its founding in 2002, tranzit, the network of civic associations has aimed to develop its programs as critical institution in a sense coined by Piotr Piotrowski. The aim of this long-term small-scale initiative was not only to mediate but also to produce critical thoughts, such as the questioning of power agency, funding conflict, labor and organization hierarchy, and other issues. While accumulating concrete realizations as well as unresolved conflicts Havránek will try to engage in a prospective talk about concrete examples inspiring institutional change. The term “therapy” in the title doesn’t refer to self-comforting subjectivation of political and social contradictions while it relates to the movement of institutional change in the field of psychiatry (Clinique de la Borde and others). Institutional Therapy interlinks the institutional with alternative “relational architecture”, “idiorythmy”, labor as a gap in-between prescript and effective, the welcoming of the visitor´s body et al.
These experiences may be experimented while starting long-term dialogues with working machines by Eva Kotátková, schizo-poetry powerstation by Babi Badalov, among others. Both artists clearly stage the question posed half century ago by R. D. Laing: “In the context of our present pervasive madness that we call normality, sanity, freedom, all our frames of reference are ambiguous and equivocal. A man who prefers to be dead rather than Red is normal. A man who says he has lost his soul is mad. A man who says that men are machines may be a great scientist. A man who says he is a machine is 'depersonalized' in psychiatric jargon. A man who says that Negroes are an inferior race may be widely respected. A man who says his whiteness is a form of cancer is certifiable. A little girl of seventeen in a mental hospital told me she was terrified because the Atom Bomb was inside her. That is a delusion. The statesmen of the world who boast and threaten that they have Doomsday weapons are far more dangerous, and far more estranged from 'reality' than many of the people on whom the label 'psychotic' is affixed.”
Babi Badalov was born in Lerik, Azerbaijan and lives in Paris, France. As a visual artist, poet Badalov expresses his ideas through visual poetry, art objects, installations, and live performances.
Vít Havránek is a curator and art organizer based in Prague, Czech Republic. Since 2002 he has been working as a director of the initiative for contemporary art tranzit. He curated and co-curated exhibitions amongst which are: Ján Mančuška First Retrospective, City Gallery Prague, Muzeum Sztuki Lodz, MG v Brně, Report on the Construction of a Spaceship, New Museum HUB, New York; Adaptation, Steirischer Herbst; Encyclopedia of Failure, Jakarta Biennale 2013; Manifesta 8, Spain; Monument to Transformation, Centro Monthermoso; City Gallery Prague; tranzit workshops, Bratislava; tranzit – Auditorium, Stage, Backstage, Frankfurter Kunstverein; I, Secession Wien; Jiri Kovanda, Brno; Otto Piene, City Gallery Prague; action, word, movement, space, City Gallery Prague and others. Edited and co-edited books and catalogues Eva Koťátková, Pictorial Atlas of a Girl…, H.U. Obrist Czech Files; Atlas to Transformation; Autobiographies; The Need to Document, Lanterna Magika; action, word, movement, space, and has written for contemporary books and catalogues.
Vít Havránek – From Critical Institution to Institutional Therapy
Babi Badalov, in his lecture-performance-installation, traces the nomad life of an artist (or traveler, migrant, refugee). Bonjour, je suis réfugié politique reflects not only on the struggling adaptation period of cultural integration, but primarily turns the protagonist into a prisoner of language. Badalov plays with linguistic notions in order to emphasize larger geo-political questions, experiments with words and writes obscure poetry, mixing languages and images of different cultures. His work often is dedicated to linguistic explorations researching the limits of language and the borders it imposes upon its users and based on his personal experience of linguistic inconveniences while travelling. In foreign countries, we often come across words written in the same alphabet as ours, but with different meaning, sound or pronunciation. His visual poetry often takes the form of a diary, created every day through a combination of his own linguistic research of manipulated pictorial material, mainly with political content.
Vít Havránek – From Critical Institution to Institutional Therapy
Since its founding in 2002, tranzit, the network of civic associations has aimed to develop its programs as critical institution in a sense coined by Piotr Piotrowski. The aim of this long-term small-scale initiative was not only to mediate but also to produce critical thoughts, such as the questioning of power agency, funding conflict, labor and organization hierarchy, and other issues. While accumulating concrete realizations as well as unresolved conflicts Havránek will try to engage in a prospective talk about concrete examples inspiring institutional change. The term “therapy” in the title doesn’t refer to self-comforting subjectivation of political and social contradictions while it relates to the movement of institutional change in the field of psychiatry (Clinique de la Borde and others). Institutional Therapy interlinks the institutional with alternative “relational architecture”, “idiorythmy”, labor as a gap in-between prescript and effective, the welcoming of the visitor´s body et al.
These experiences may be experimented while starting long-term dialogues with working machines by Eva Kotátková, schizo-poetry powerstation by Babi Badalov, among others. Both artists clearly stage the question posed half century ago by R. D. Laing: “In the context of our present pervasive madness that we call normality, sanity, freedom, all our frames of reference are ambiguous and equivocal. A man who prefers to be dead rather than Red is normal. A man who says he has lost his soul is mad. A man who says that men are machines may be a great scientist. A man who says he is a machine is 'depersonalized' in psychiatric jargon. A man who says that Negroes are an inferior race may be widely respected. A man who says his whiteness is a form of cancer is certifiable. A little girl of seventeen in a mental hospital told me she was terrified because the Atom Bomb was inside her. That is a delusion. The statesmen of the world who boast and threaten that they have Doomsday weapons are far more dangerous, and far more estranged from 'reality' than many of the people on whom the label 'psychotic' is affixed.”
Babi Badalov was born in Lerik, Azerbaijan and lives in Paris, France. As a visual artist, poet Badalov expresses his ideas through visual poetry, art objects, installations, and live performances.
Vít Havránek is a curator and art organizer based in Prague, Czech Republic. Since 2002 he has been working as a director of the initiative for contemporary art tranzit. He curated and co-curated exhibitions amongst which are: Ján Mančuška First Retrospective, City Gallery Prague, Muzeum Sztuki Lodz, MG v Brně, Report on the Construction of a Spaceship, New Museum HUB, New York; Adaptation, Steirischer Herbst; Encyclopedia of Failure, Jakarta Biennale 2013; Manifesta 8, Spain; Monument to Transformation, Centro Monthermoso; City Gallery Prague; tranzit workshops, Bratislava; tranzit – Auditorium, Stage, Backstage, Frankfurter Kunstverein; I, Secession Wien; Jiri Kovanda, Brno; Otto Piene, City Gallery Prague; action, word, movement, space, City Gallery Prague and others. Edited and co-edited books and catalogues Eva Koťátková, Pictorial Atlas of a Girl…, H.U. Obrist Czech Files; Atlas to Transformation; Autobiographies; The Need to Document, Lanterna Magika; action, word, movement, space, and has written for contemporary books and catalogues.