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MILAN KOHOUT – RETROSPECTIVE

Milan Kohout
NoD
Prague, Czech Republic
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A retrospective exhibition of works by performer, action artist, poet, and teacher Milan Kohout.  In 1986, Kohout and several other Charter 77 signatories were expelled from the country because of their political and cultural activities. Today, he works in Boston, Massachusetts. The defining direction taken by Kohout’s American art results from his realization that the capitalist system in the United States is no more than a different form of totalitarianism that one must resist just as much as the hated communist regime. The exhibition presents two key activities in Kohout’s politically engaged work. One of these is the production of activist posters criticizing America’s economy, oil policy, war machinery, media manipulation, religious blindness, racism, and prejudices. Kohout’s main focus, however, remains on action art.

2x comments “MILAN KOHOUT – RETROSPECTIVE”

  1. Julia Goryuchkina says on05. Sep. 2009:

    I am Milan’s friend from Boston. Milan’s work is powerful, aesthetically coherent, and courageous. He never seems to be tired of creating, and thus his body of work is also impressive. Great retro exhibition in Prague!!

    Julia Goryuchkina

  2. lou suSi says on19. Dec. 2009:

    the message, this continual commentary and ingenious campaign against the thoughtless momentum of our found systems ‘out there in the world’ that Milan brings to the world in his work is absolutely essential and necessary for us to even begin to admit the problem … its that first step to admitting you are an addict, in this case an addict of passive acceptance of the established systems of any nomenclature … democracy, communism, etceteracism … these labels we like to put upon ourselves typically start in the words of great philosophers and thinkers that are trying to define a utopia … and then the implementation of these systems becomes something so completely morphed, twisted and dystopic by comparison … nobody is doing the user-centered testing to keep the systems in check … and the philosophical beginnings always, always, always get titty-twisted out into some economic perverse transmogrification that totally destroys the original idea, that original essential core that was the primary kernel of the design idea behind that particular philosophy

    so, from my own standpoint as a research practitioner testing the system we all still call democracy … my political renaming that would be far more frank and truthful would be something like this equation below:

    democracy + political power and alterior motives + socioEconomic control systems = capitalistic consumerism

    we are not ‘a democracy’ here at all … democracy is for the people, by the people in theory … so we would need to have the people, not just the pigs, participate in the actual governance of the people with the needs and greater good of the people in mind for each and every decision … is that even possible?

    Milan’s work always points out in very ingenious ways where the system or systems fall short and how he as an individual thinks about the landscape we’re all looking at … well, a good many of us might not actually be looking at a landscape at all, but for those that look and think about it, they’ll want to see Milan and follow his work … they need Milan’s voice … we all need it

Here you can express yourself. (*required)