Easter is pleased to present hold that foot, a group exhibition with works by Annelies Kamen, Sláva Sobotovičová and Richard Nikl. The show explores the structural power of language in determining the boundaries we live within.
The installation Mary Jane’s Mishap(2022) by Annelies Kamen presents a pair of smoking Dr. Martens. Originally developed as work shoes for labourers, Dr. Martens later became associated with various subcultures and the fashion world.
The title makes reference to the 1903 trick film Mary Jane’s Mishap; or, Don’t Fool with the Paraffin, credited to director George Albert Smith. The film is pioneering in its camera and editing techniques – using a double exposure ‘trick’ to depict the ghost of housemaid Mary Jane, played by Smith’s wife Laura Bayley, who blows herself up trying to light the stove with paraffin. Bayley is now known to have contributed significantly, not just as a comic actress, but also behind the lens as an uncredited director and cinematographer in her hus- band’s films – likely herself developing the camera illusion that allows her character to disappear on film.
Kamen’s research-based practice frequently addresses topics of labour through language and humour. Her works often employ jokes that appear almost deconstructed, because like with many things, once you see what it contains, it’s usually not funny at all.
Self-Combustion(2026) by Richard Nikl is about a process of burning from within. Nikl transforms the act of burning a flag into a form of patriotic theatre. The work considers the structures embedded within language, allowing words to separate from their conventional linear framework and begin to function as protagonists engaging in complex polyphonic webs. The work here is filled with the phrase “STALO SE,” a Czech expression meaning “it happened.” The phrase is commonly used in relation to events understood as inevitable, but might as well just cover up for laziness or inaction. “”Stalo se nestalo” (it happened, or it did not) is the Czech counterpart to the English “once upon a time,” serving as an existential polemic that inevitably frames the art object as an element of role-play.
The video work Not in Circles but Sideways(2024) of Sláva Sobotovičová is based, in her own words “..on appropriated fragments of shepherds’ talks sung in a psalmodic fashion. The typographic visuals accentuate the relation of written text to narration, film media and cultural hegemony carried out through a language”. Sobotovičová frequently allows language to perform independently, often working with older dialects and inverted or displaced traditions. In this piece, we think of milking as a metaphor for the endless cycle of extrac- tion under capitalism beyond the limits of what can be sustained. At the same time, milking evokes an older, communal form of labour, offering a contrast between collective practices of gathering and the relentless productivity demanded by society.