Boris Ondreička
The Abyss (2019)
Performance
Boris Ondreička, The Abyss, 2019, performance, Literaturhaus Graz, photo: Clara Wildberger
Boris Ondreička, The Abyss, 2019, sketch, courtesy the artist
The abyss is an ongoing obsession in Boris Ondreička’s practice as a visual poet and performer. His hypnotic visual-poetry performances combine hundreds of quotes from fields ranging from mysticism to political science with a vast archive of images. Ondreička thus creates a pseudo- or para-phenomenology of the abyss and delves into its attendant notions such as alienation, schizo- and xeno-cultures, crisis, catastrophe, and the occult, confronting all of the weird creatures and creations of the apocalyptic imagination. In his performance for steirischer herbst, Ondreička explores the pre-apocalyptic atmosphere of the early 20th century, as found in Karl Kraus’s famed drama The Last Days of Mankind. He draws upon this and many other sources to ask whether Georg Lukács was really so right in his rigorous condemnation of those who stare into the abyss too long.
3.10.19, 21:00
Duration: 60 min.
Literaturhaus Graz
Elisabethstraße 30
8010 Graz
♿ Venue accessible for wheelchairs
http://www.literaturhaus-graz.at
In English
Free with a Festival Pass for all events of Weltmaschine : Österreich at Literaturhaus Graz (3.10.–5.10).
Please reserve your seats at the website of Literaturhaus Graz.
Commissioned and produced by steirischer herbst ’19
Boris Ondreička (1969, Zlaté Moravce, Slovakia) is a curator, artist, author, and singer. While directing art institutions and curating major exhibitions, Ondreička also devises lecture-performances in which he plumbs the depths of the changing poetic relationship of the written and spoken word to images. His work focuses on nihilistic, occultist, and anarchist thought as well as environmental thinking. Ondreička lives in Bratislava.