curator: Michal Novotný

Marek Meduna’s exhibition (1974, Prague) deals with figuration underlining the ambivalent and disorienting impact of images. A chain of stereotypes abstracted from western mass media, stylistically set somewhere between a textbook illustration and caricature cartoon, it urges the viewer to deal with the impossibility of coherent interpretation. Extremely sexualised, racist, xenophobic, islamophobic, obscene and generally clichéd motifs oscillate between repulsion and fascination. The feeling of aversion, yet the impossibility to avert one’s eyes, is further accentuated with the depiction of visceral body parts, excrements, genitals, warts and other repugnant elements. Yet, the canvases are hypnotizing: the gaze moves constantly, skipping from one elaborated detail to another, preventing the viewer from focussing on the whole.

The paintings of Marek Meduna are therefore an accusation and conviction of the viewer from voyeurism and vulturism. Rupture, collision and consequent breakdown appearinig in the construction of meanings and paintings become a visual non-speech lacking clear linguistic sense, but still carrying strong emotional response/charge. The exhibition in theFUTURA Gallery presents a complex scenography, with paintings incorporated in the sculptural installation.