Artist: Kasia Fudakowski
Exhibition title: Elephant Juice
Venue: 1646, The Hague, The Netherlands
Date: December 14, 2018 – January 13, 2019
Photography: Jhoeko / images copyright and courtesy of the artist and 1646, The Hague. Credit Images ‘film stills’: courtesy ChertLüdde berlin
1646 proudly presents Elephant Juice, an exhibition with new work by Kasia Fudakowski (b. 1985, lives and works in Berlin).
In this exhibition Fudakowski will present a video installation with newly developed work in a multi-sensory exhibition space. In a characteristically diverse and playful approach this work investigates the fictional consequences of an imposed limit on a resource, which we have until now taken for granted. Using a distinct sense of humour and surreal logic, the ironic parallels with our current reality, serve as powerful tools for reflection.
Elephant Juice is part of the on-going experimental film project entitled Word Count which concerns a futuristic scenario where scientists confirm a direct correlation between the dramatically rising sea levels and the amount of words that we speak. Consequently, delegates from every nation of the world gather together to find a solution and resolve that each citizen of the world shall be rationed to 433 words per day. This comes to be known as Cage Law after John Cage’s 4”33’.
This on-going, disaster-in-slow-motion, horrific farce is made up of accumulating short films, which open windows into the consequences of Cage Law in different scenarios and for various characters. Slowly, four central characters will emerge: Jennifer the lawyer, her unemployed husband David, her client Professor Sanchez and her neighbour Bridget, a struggling stand up comedian. Along with the existing four shorts, Elephant Juice features three new shorts shot in The Hague, one of which follows David’s narrative as a recently made redundant Radio DJ trying to make sense of his position in this new world order. The words ‘Elephant Juice’, when mouthed, are almost indistinguishable from the words ‘I love you’.
Fudakowski’s practice, which includes sculpture, performance, writing and film-making, explores social riddles through material encounters, surreal logic and comic theory. Her work often addresses the absurdity of certain accepted logic. The process begins with an observation, which she sees as humorous or strange and follows through its gradual deconstruction. In a previously performed work at 1646 Kasia managed to merge an experience of struggle, directness, laughter and lightness with a full mastering of the tragicomic. She uses joke structure and comic theory as a tool to manipulate expectations and critique accepted social structures.
Kasia Fudakowski studied at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University and has exhibited internationally at venues such as; The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Kunstverein Braunschweig; Arnolfini, Bristol; GAK, Bremen; FUTURA, Prague; Harburger Bahnhof Kunstverein, Hamburg; Sprengel Museum, Hanover; and Museum Ludwig, Cologne.
