Battling the Monster Worms

I had dinner with my friend C. Carlton Sheff yesterday. We met in a small Chinese Take-Away restaurant in Karlin, near where he lives, the part of Prague that was completely underwater during the 2002 flood. C.C. spent last year in Kyoto, with his girlfriend Kristyana, studying Japanese calligraphy and Bushido. Since his return to Prague in January, I haven’t seen much of him. He’s been busy writing a new novel and I’ve been busy carrying on with my secret life.

Like most American expats, we discussed the declining American Empire as a way of assuring each other we got out just in time.

“Airport security is the first thing to go,” said C.C. “They’re so desperate to fill all these new security positions that they hire just about anyone. Don’t even look at their past criminal records. I usually just get the pork fried rice. When Kristyana and I were in the U.S. for Christmas we had this dumb ass security guard who went through my bag, then threw it down on the ground upside down. Are you getting a beer? I just reached down to set in upright and he snapped at me. I couldn’t complain, couldn’t say anything. If I did he probably would have detained me and I would have missed my flight. Try the Chicken with Five Spices. That’s a case where the wrong person is given entirely too much power and it’s happening more and more like that in the U.S.”

After the waitress came and took our order, I asked C.C. what his new book is about.

“I’ve been reading a lot on the cold war lately. Have you read any Alan Furst? He’s written a series of books about World War II and Central Europe – Hungary, Poland, Romania...And then I started reading some of the political theory of Hannah Arendt. You know who I’m talking about? She escaped Germany in World War II and went on to write about power and totalitarianism and evil, like, what is evil? Is evil really some powerful force or is it just a lack of will, a slothful banality of mankind? So that, plus my recent studies on Bushido started my brain ticking…That’s fast.”

The waitress had just returned with our dishes. She set them down before us. My Chicken with Five Spices looked like a typical sweet and sour chicken. It also had peas mixed in with it. I hate peas. I consider peas evil. I would have to pick them out.

“What was I saying?” Continued C.C. “Yeah, right. So I started getting this image of giant, monstrous creatures rising out of the ocean devouring everything in their path. It’s going to cross a lot of genres. It’s sort of a Cold War-Science Fiction-Political Thriller with a sword fighting hero who lives his life as if he were looking toward each present moment from the time of his death."

“What sort of monstrous creatures?”

“There’s this nuclear testing going on at the bottom of the Artic Sea, which rouses these giant prehistoric words from their aquatic slumber.”

"Words?"

"Did I say words? I mean worms. Giant, monstrous worms"

“Is this something you picked up from reading Hannah Arendt?”

“Not exactly. I mean, it’s kind of in there. If you read The Origins of Totalitarianism or On Violence it’s there, just not so metaphorically.”

The More Biennales the Merrier

While Flash Art Magazine founders Giancarlo Politi and Helena Kontova and Milan Knízák, Director of the National Gallery in Prague, are busy battling it out over who’s Art Biennale is the real Prague Art Biennale, artist Bohumil Kmonicek has taken advantage of the confusion by launching his own Prague Biennale out of his apartment in Vysocany.

An invitation to the Kmonicek Biennale arrived by email. Unlike the other two Biennales in Prague that chose to compete for public attention with opening festivities on May 26, Kmonicek got a jump start on things by choosing May 25 for the opening of his 2005 Prague Biennale.

I tend to get lost every time I go to Vysocany. (Though friends have taken me to the Modra Opice “Blue Monkey” Bar numerous times, please don’t ask me to lead the way there.) True to form, it took me a good hour before I finally discovered Kmonicek’s gray cinder block apartment building on Mezitratova Street (thanks to a 3 x 3 meter sign in the dirt out front which reads: “Koberce Brázda s.r.o. Proud Sponsors of Prague Biennale”).

I rang Kmonicek’s buzzer. Without a word spoken over the intercom, the steel and glass door buzzed open. I assumed the colorful tape arrows along the walls and stairwell were directing me towards the Biennale. After three flights of stairs, the arrows lead me to a door with a large poster of a beautiful girl in lingerie laying upon a plush red carpet and the words “Spolecnost KOBERCE BRÁZDA s.r.o. vznikla v roce 1993 welcome you Prague Biennale!”

Unsurprisingly, Kmonicek’s Biennale contained many of his own works. Prominently displayed was a large sofa wrapped entirely in duct tape and twine titled klobása premoci or “Sausage Surprise,” But there were also works by a number of other Czech artists, including Jakub Dadák, Petr Brnák, and Jana Culíkova. Representing artists from abroad were Peter Nigel (UK), Petr Jurinová (SK) and Petr Poroshenko (UA), or The Three Peters, as Kmonicek referes to them in the Biennale's catalog.

During the time of my visit, Kmonicek was very busy trying to remove wine stains from the floor of the main exhibition hall (his living room), but I managed to get him to respond to a few questions about the biennale. I first asked about the current divisiveness in Prague's art scene. "This is good," was Kmonicek's firm, unqualified response.

Pressing him further, I asked, "You don't think that the competition from two major exhibitions, both calling themselves Prague Biennales, taking place at the same time as yours will draw attention away from your biennale?"

"First, let me tell you the true answer," said Komenica, rising on his knees and wringing the wet wine-stained rag into a bucket. "This is not my Biennale. This is artists' biennale. I do it for artists everwhere. I think, 'Why not?' I have place for exhibition. I know artists. I know money for promotion. Really, this anyone can do. Maybe we should all be having Biennales, you think?"

I thought it was maybe a good idea. I plan to speak to my flatmate Lawrence and see if he's up for having a Biennale in our apartment in Zizkov. I'll keep you posted if we do.