Routine Ravers

The exhibition walls are veiled and the floor is lined with fabric. The atmosphere is soft. The artist duo Barbora Zentková & Julia Gryboś creates a spatial installation that invites the audience to be present and linger. Visitors walk into environments that are welcoming, but offer no direct instructions for action. What kind of routine are we talking about? Who are the ravers? The central agent in the duo's work is the material. It demands routine in its handling but remains a raver itself. It is stubborn, requiring tireless dedication from the artists in its further manipulation. Zentková and Gryboś use second-hand materials that have their own lived histories. They are no longer in use, but they find a new form in the artists' works. Used bed sheets become wall reliefs. Pieces of textile are pressed together and carefully molded into shape. They are framed like paintings, recalling layers of rock formed over millions of years under pressure and heat. Can the weight of the bodies that once lay between these sheets still be felt? Or has it been overwritten by the weight of the artists' bodies, which produce these works in a heavy and slow process? What memories are inscribed in the layers of the wall reliefs? As a society, we have largely forgotten how to reuse things. Some people still remember it from village life: textiles are used until they are no longer viable. A T-shirt becomes a dishcloth, then a floor mop until it eventually falls apart. In the works of Zentková and Gryboś, used materials find their way into artistic production – a field that rarely pays attention to sustainable cycles. However, the duo finds a new use even for the used wax, melting and integrating it in new installations. The artists also reuse their own works in novel contexts, yet they always adapt them to the specific site. The environment at Galerie Parterre consists of a floor work created especially for the gallery space, as well as a layer of textile covering nearly the entire wall. At the same time, visitors encounter red steel sculptures with wax drops and the aforementioned wall reliefs, which were recently shown in the Lethargy Blanket exhibition at the Jan Koniark Gallery in Slovakia. The works of Barbora Zentková & Julia Gryboś negotiate slowness, and the artists’ way of working is often physically demanding. Can we lose ourselves inside a routine? In a result-orientated society, is it possible to refocus on the process itself? How long can I pursue routine movements before I reach a state similar to that of a rave? And when does artistic work turn into excess? The performance at the exhibition opening and the sound present in the gallery space throughout the show’s duration form another layer of the environment created by the artist duo. The floor invites visitors to sit or even lie down with its protrusions. How does the visitor's body inscribe itself into the exhibition?