Artist: Marta Trektere
Title: Dying Death
Curated by: Christina Gigliotti
Screening: December 26, 2019 – January 12, 2020
Duration: 40’47”
Q:If people evolved from monkeys, when did we lose our tails?
A: Humans evolved from earlier apes, none of which have tails. Apes and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor that lived around 25 million years ago and did have a tail.
Q: So, do monkeys eat bananas?
A: No.
My mind is not the whole of it. Behind there’s an unconscious mind. Mmmm. I’m in a really nice mood right now. You know, the Freudian kind of mood. I’m sitting on my stone cold bench and giving myself a thought. Morning meditation. Eating Rachmaninoff’s favorite food. Thinking about the impossible task that he has given me. Symbolic expression of my thoughts. Nothing real, though. Clay. A natural, earthy mineral that becomes plastic, when wet. Today I want to create a radish. Glazed pink. Did you know that radish tops can be used as a leaf vegetable? Well, I didn’t, so they’ll be out of the picture. Also, the world’s biggest raddish weights 31,1 kilogram(s). Fun, isn’t it? That’s life! Such a funny thing. Radish kind of thing. Reason and inquiry. I wash myself with ambrosia and anoint myself with oil. Zeus, can you even resist me? Did you know that ambition carries the fear of death?
Marta Trektere (b. 1994) is a performance artist, writer and an independent curator based Riga, Latvia. Currently co-running the artist-run space 427 gallery in Riga. Trektere has studied German Language in the Latvian Academy of Culture and University of Latvia. Trektere’s works address the simplicity of complexity in everyday life as well as psychological difficulties in life, art and text working with various media like performance, text, video, sound. Recent performances and screening include Dying Death, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania (2019) Painless Youth, Editorial, Vilnius, Lithuania (2019); Posh Spaz, kim? CAC, Riga, Latvia (2019); Fragile Trap, Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow, Poland (2018); Suckling Animal Sibling in collaboration with Anni Puolakka kim? CAC Riga, Latvia (2018); Variations on Vulnerability, BOZAR Brussels (2018) Baltic Interior, BOZAR, Brussels (2018); Everybody Reads collaboration with Valentinas Klimašauskas, kim? CAC Riga, Latvia (2018) among other.
