Czech Honza
Czech Honza
Jana Orlová decided to spend four hours in the skin of „Czech Honza“, a village bumpkin and a macho man. She drank cheap beer, ate low-quality sausages and rolls, burped, farted and made stupid jokes. There is almost no documentation of this performance, as the photographers present considered the artist to be a jerk who had joined the event by chance.
The performance was part of the collective performance project Liquid Queer Memoria. The drag king theme was chosen by Jana Orlová as a tribute to the artist Diane Torr, known primarily for her „gender-as-performance“ workshop „Man for a Day“.
22 August 2023, Troja Castle, Prague. Jitka Hlaváčková, curator, Darina Alster and Martin Kámen, authors of the project.
Beer at Five
At the Czech Centre London I prepared a „tea at five“ style treat – I just served Czech beer and wine.
At the Czech Centre London, Jana Orlová prepared a banquet in the „tea at five“ style – with the difference that instead of tea she served Czech beer and wine. The subversive work with national myths and stereotypes was part of a full-length composite event that presented authors of the contemporary Czech poetry scene who combined poetry with other art forms (music, video, theatre, performance). Jana Orlová gave an author reading during the evening and her video art video was also screened, in which the artist pours slime on herself while reciting her poem.
https://london.czechcentres.cz/en/program/ancient-gods-are-still-online
Czech Centre London, London, 30 May 2023, photo Tereza Vernerová
Performing the Exhibition
Collaboration with Jiří Surůvka – two performances inside his exhibition at GASK gallery in Kutná Hora: https://gask.cz/vystava/jiri-suruvka-strujci-valky/
Jana Orlová and Jiří Surůvka performed together within Jiří Surůvka’s retrospective exhibition titled The War Contributors. The exhibition reflected the long-term themes and visual forms of Jiří Surůvka’s work, whether it be paintings, installations or performances. Collaborative performances by both artists were part of the exhibition’s accompanying program and further developed and shifted the meanings of Surůvka’s original artworks. The performances also developed the concept of „Performing the Exhibition“, i.e. performing inside the exhibition and performing the exhibition itself.
First intervention 1.4. 2023 and the second one 3.6. 2023, photo GASK archive and author’s archive.
The Glare
The Podchod Festival takes place in Ostrava et the underpass under the Frýdlant bridges, one of Ostrava’s main transport hubs. The underpass is in poor technical condition, it smells of urine. I decided to take benefit of the local acoustics and in collaboration with Martin Dytko (music improvisation), I prepared a site-specific performance, which was based on the atmosphere of the place and responded to an existing installation by the artist Jan Vlček. His installation had reacted to the strong guitar sound and the tapes from old videotapes as well. I decided to use these tapes as a reference to a well-known event that took place at the underpass just before the Velvet Revolution in 1989.
Podchod festival, 12.5. 2023, Ostrava, photo Lucie Nožková.
Black Transgression
Indeed, the experience of extreme states disintegrates us, precluding calm reflection, because its principle is to bring us „outside ourselves“. We are always open to a possibility that borders on madness… (Georges Bataille, Erotism)
Jana Orlova’s performance not only juggles with such concepts as transgression, orgy or sacrifice, but also actively co-creates new interpretations of them. Touching the fragile terrain of primordial projections and fantasies, intimate and detached at the same time.
Sofia Underground festival, 29.4. 2023, photo artist’s archive
