Toto! Kurva

Exhibition project Toto! Kurva in Ústí nad Labem responds to the local urban anomaly – the location of a giant mall in the city centre and its connection with a major landmark in Ústí nad Labem – Větruše, which is reached by a cable car from the roof of the department store. If visitors want to get to Větruše the easiest way, they are forced to pass through the temple of consumerism. The cable car then takes them to the higher spheres of consumer hell. At the top, a reconstructed mansion stands, which houses a restaurant and hotel. The ordinary inhabitants of the city, however, subconsciously feel that they do not belong in this newly created world. Those for whom the premises are intended are members of the upper class – representatives of the local power elite of businessmen and politicians. Downstairs, they buy new clothes, electronics, cosmetics, and useless things. Upstairs, they have fun. And they look down on a symbol of contemporary „culture“. In one of the buildings on Větruše (in a building with a mirror maze), a small gallery – Up Gallery – has been operating for two years. How many times have visitors to the restaurant been to see the exhibition? And how many people going through the maze stop at the end? Like a shopping mall, a gallery can be an isolated space. It depends on who walks in and how open they are to the perception and imagination and values of society. The public space, of which galleries are undoubtedly a part, struggles in the deadlock of social ignorance and a political infrastructure riddled with corruption. The experimental group Cancel356 imagines a different kind of public space. In the project Toto! Kurva plays with the language of business marketers. It modifies advertising slogans and brings human language and poetry into the space of the department store. It implies unexpected messages into the commercial space and thus tries to disengage the passive consumer from routine actions. The exhibition aims to simulate the shopping space in Up Gallery and try to break the mainly casual visitors out of their consumerist lethargy. For this purpose, a sound installation by Kristýna Kužvartová has been created. The exhibition project brings together two often closed worlds. Worlds are seemingly different, but often subject to similar mechanisms of consumer behaviour.