In the series, I have collected work instruments that, together with various organs, serve as “votive offerings.” The human essence fully invests itself in work; therefore, tools of trade automatically deserve sacralization. Sometimes they begin to resemble implements of torture or get grouped into quasi-heraldic compositions, sometimes they get incorporated into bodily structures or even replace organs, transforming the body into work equipment. Work consumes sexuality, movements become mechanized and orderly. Will and experiment are obstructed by experience. Primitive quotidian life takes human beings hostage, and imprisons them in work.
In the times of the Athenian democracy, slavery and slave labor had undermined the spirit of democracy: according to Aristotle, a slave, the most perfect work instrument, was living chattel property endowed with a soul. Importantly, when slaves had to provide testimony in court, they spoke with their “bodies;” that is, they could be subjected to torture. The Soviet regime meticulously cultivated another interpretation of work. This interpretation consisted of the belief that any work is worth respect. Manual labor was respected, and workers of both sexes became heroic figures. Experience of physical labor dwarfed intellectual efforts, much like muscular workers’ bodies dwarfed those that fell below the “healthy” norm.
Nevertheless, having experience of living in a country house that serves as our studio and shelter out of the city, I cannot leave out another important aspect of manual labor that is necessary under these conditions: namely, that it gains something similar to gravity, lending bodies a sense of weight. Agricultural work is integrated into natural cycles; much like natural processes, its cycles are constantly renewed, and have no end. Despite the triumphant march of progress, simple work doesn’t disappear and reminds us about the presence of death in life. Involving death in the course of things helps to overcome fear of death and reminds humankind of its divine nature when spiritual efforts are produced through physical exertion, or even liberated through it.
Artist’s work stands apart from other kinds of work that satisfy humankind’s functional needs. Unclear and undefined, it asks us to relinquish the Manichean view of the world with its very presence, leaving behind the vicious circle of dualist dogmatism.
(Vlada Ralko. July 2019)