Artists: Daniela & Linda Dostálková
Exhibition title: Old Sinne / Reneweth Shame
Venue: Piktogram, Warsaw, Poland
Date: November 9, 2019 – January 18, 2020
Photography: Bartosz Górka / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Piktogram, Warsaw
The exhibition Old Sinne / Reneweth Shame is focused on the interpretation of various animal rights activists groups, based on analysis of their existing campaigns and events.
Taking into account a wide range of identities and directions of selected groups, artists attempt to supply definitions for the notoriously slippery terms of uncharismatic species, women, and monstrosity and suggest connections among all three that make them useful and lively means of inquiry. At Piktogram Daniela & Linda Dostálková providing a limited arena for expressing fantasies of domination, or inversion.
Key element of monster’s power is its ability both to attract and repel. Artists attribute the cultural fascination with the monster to the twin desire, which is difficult to apprehend and to domesticate. The cute versus wild paradox is illustrating the human experience of nature in contemporary society. Uncharismatic species as monsters notoriously appears at times of crisis as a kind of the third term that problematizes the clash of extremes.
The Artists have been constantly addressing post-humanist issues related to the depiction and protection of animals. The theme has been approached several times in previous shows, such as Heroic vs. Holistic, introduced in the form of an erotic eco-drama. The exhibition offered a post-romantic view on ecology from both ethical viewpoints. In their recent video installation Acid Rain, they were displaying eco-feminist issues and above all grief caused by the current state of nature.
Daniela & Linda Dostálková work as a duo, live in Prague. Linda graduated from Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem (2015) and Scenography at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno (2005). She is an advisor at Van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. Daniela studied at Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Department of New media, prof. Grzegorz Kowalski (2005).
