18. 9. 2022 16:30
Martin Zet
Piazzetta of the National Theatre / Prague 1
COTTON CANDY
“We all know the feeling of getting trapped in the ephemeral net of random relations – sticky, pliable, light and attractive. The seemingly immaterial sweet temptation that we can consume in an unlimited amount, which will dissolve on our tongue into a sweet nothing. Throw away the heft of reality and wrap your hard-tested neurons in a sweet web… Come indulge yourselves!”
In his Cotton Candy performance for Re-connect Art, Martin Zet tentatively touches certain substantial traits that our digital existence brings with it: its ephemerality, the apparent ease of interaction giving dopamine satisfaction, and the creation of parallel, filtered – and as such usually prettier – reality, which often conceals stories of addiction and psychological traumas.
Martin Zet (*1959) is a Czech visual and multimedia artist, primarily a performer and sculptor, though his works also include drawings, photography, video and authorial books. In 2013, he won the Umělec má cenu (Artist Has a Prize) award that young visual artists, critics and theorists bestow on inspiring members of the older generation. In his art, Zet actively combines personal and socially involved theme planes, for example in his long-term art research into the sculpting legacy of his father Miloš Zet where he has pointed out the ties to the period and personal context that determine their origin and idea focus. His strongly conceptual art is based on specific work with temporality, materiality and memory as well as humour and metaphorical hyperbole.