Martin Horák combines normalization eroticism with eastern philosophy

I see no evil, I hear no evil, I speak no evil… Perhaps everyone knows a group of three wise monkeys, one of whom covers his eyes (Mizaru), the second his ears (Kikazaru) and the third his mouth (Iwazaru). Fewer people know that there is a fourth monkey named Shizaru, who covers his abdomen or genital area. Interpretations of this fourth monkey vary, and its symbolism can be read as “I do no evil” or “I resist no evil”.

At this year’s SEFO 2024 Triennial, artist Martin Horák is exhibiting his work Mizaru, Kikazaru, Iwazaru, Šizaru (2015-2024) at the Olomouc Museum of Art, referring to the aforementioned wise monkeys. However, Horák does not exhibit monkeys; his sculptural installation in the Triplex offers a glimpse of the seductively rounded curves of girls’ bodies. This is not an end in itself, however; the work thus offers multiple dimensions.

These small ceramic sculptures with their distinctive white glaze may be familiar at first glance, especially to older visitors. In fact, Horák based his work on statuettes that have appeared in perhaps every socialist household in the past. Decorative art of little artistic value to the middle classes stood on TV sets, wardrobes, shelves of prefabricated living rooms or “tastefully” complemented books in home libraries.

Martin Horák (born in 1968) remembers the time of the greatest glory of these products, but he also experienced their post-revolutionary decline, when the tasteless statuettes ended up in the dustbins. Years later, however, a reincarnation followed in the form of retro enthusiasm, which sought a touch of aesthetics in any soulless industrially produced decoration.

The combination of the lascivious eroticism of the “Husák generation” and Eastern philosophy resulted in a provocative work that, with authorial insight, searches for the limits of morality and gropes for the aesthetic values of the sexist fetishes of slowly aging white men in the industrialized West.