Bread and Games
In his show, Bread and Games, Marián Grolmus focuses especially on the games that – boldly and frankly – serve as a maneuver concealing military operations or masking a regime that ignores human rights, but we all watch them anyway. During the London Olympics there were reports made public about the volume of military technology deployed in order to “protect” the sport areas, notwithstanding the fact that in any potential case of its use, this technology would harm first and foremost the civilians. But we don’t have to seek examples as far as in Beijing, London or Sochi. The idea to organize Winter Olympics in High Tatras keeps coming back regularly every time, when there is a need to create a political distraction. And a nation can still more easily identify with a sportsman, be it a hero on a bicycle, or a bunch of agile youth on ice and on a lawn.
Meanwhile the propaganda mutates, adapts, it is stylized, shining even, but the enemy stays the same. Maybe it’s now closer than we are willing to admit.
- The show is actually very political; we don't have very often exhibitions00:00:12.106
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- as much political as this one.00:00:15.617
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- Marian reproached me for writing a very political text,00:00:18.515
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- though I told him: what other text than political shall one write00:00:22.816
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- when you stab a big red star into the ceiling?00:00:26.640
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- And I think that's the way it is.00:00:30.914
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- The show is ironic - it ironizes the used symbols;00:00:34.410
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- it is very up-to-date and still very political at the same time.00:00:39.089
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- I've been already asked today one question,00:00:44.198
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- whether it doesn't get bogged down in a conspiracy due to some of the things00:00:47.107
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- like the London Olympics - I don't think so,00:00:51.264
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- though it's, of course, a matter of some information warfares.00:00:54.103
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- The themes are clear:00:00:58.664
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- it is a militant, worldly attitude;00:01:01.202
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- the piece symbols misused for the sake of propaganda00:01:04.716
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- and information warfare.00:01:09.585
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- All of these are remarks of an ordinary citizen00:01:13.402
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- wandering around the countries of European Union, including Slovakia.00:01:16.400
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- It's not some kind of profound research,00:01:22.375
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- they are more or less just extracts,00:01:27.118
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- selections from the "shop windows" of the individual countries,00:01:31.164
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- meaning what they are offering in regard to what's going on in their societies,00:01:36.046
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- void of any ambition to create some definition of what's going on there.00:01:40.693
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- They are merely observations.00:01:44.532
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- It has begun in London in 2012 during Olympic Games,00:01:46.781
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- when there were surface-to-air missiles placed on the roofs of apartment buildings.00:01:51.534
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- And there were immediately two strong symbols in the city,00:01:59.773
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- that is, the Olympic Games symbol, a piece symbol,00:02:03.579
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- and the rockets, a war symbol.00:02:07.203
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- And these two things don't go along at all, of course.00:02:09.633
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- So, I have merely joined these two symbols;00:02:12.866
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- and that's how the "London 2012" artwork was created.00:02:16.781
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- This goes also for "Style and Safety 2012."00:02:21.213
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- And that was, in a way, the beginning of all those artworks.00:02:25.638
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- Later, the artwork entitled "Mor ho!" was created00:02:28.719
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- for the Rural show in Red Gallery in London.00:02:32.371
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- And that's another continuation of the work,00:02:36.010
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- though in this case it points rather homeward, to Slovakia.00:02:40.222
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- And the next thing is an artwork00:02:45.411
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- created for the Plusminusnula gallery,00:02:50.993
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- a five-pointed star placed both on roof and inside;00:02:53.368
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- it's kind of a penetration, an impact of a star-shaped bullet.00:02:58.391
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- That's actually the newest, fresh, artwork00:03:02.857
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- referring as well to what's going on in Ukraine.00:03:07.530