4. 10. - 21. 10. 2007, La Fabrika, Prague

As the title of this exhibition, borrowed from the writings of Michel Foucault, suggests, the main theme of this exhibition is a relation between the body and power. Foucauldian term does not refer to the restrictive power, domineering and executed from above or from any fixed focus. „The Power is everywhere; which does not mean it envelopes everything but that it stems out of everything,“ states Foucault in his first volume of History of Sexuality. Here can be also found the definition of biopower as „an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations“. Biopower is immanent, as if dispersed in human society. It functions through disciplining and control of the social body by means of systems of administrative and economical control, a wide range of institutions (schools, army, hospitals, prisons, etc.) and discourses (law, religions, sociology, medicine, sexology, psychiatry, demography and others).

The BIO-POWER exhibition reflects on various themes derived from Foucault’s History of Sexuality for instance the medical discourse surrounding the body of a female hysteric (Anna Baumgart), or the mapping out of the various forms of desire that do not conform to the heterosexual norm (Jana Štěpánová). The body is shown as subjected to fetishist desire (Géza Szöllősi), shaped by media coverage (Anna Baumgart), or by means of medical interventions (Lukáš Haruštiak). The exhibition exposes the objectification of human and animal bodies alike (Viktor Frešo, Lukáš Haruštiak, Ondřej Brody), while analysing our biotechnological limits (Antal Lakner), the problems of dieting (Lucia Tkáčová and Anetta Chişa), rhetorics of rasism (Tamara Moyzes), ethics (Kamil Kuskowski), and politics (Eva Filová). Last but not least, it explores the conventions and formal rules regulating the representation of the human body in visual arts (Anna Molska).

Exhibiting artists: Ondřej Brody /CZ/, Anna Baumgart /PL/, Eva Filová /SK/, Viktor Frešo /SK/, Lukáš Haruštiak /SK/, Kamil Kuskowski /PL/, Antal Lakner /HU/, Anna Molska /PL/, Anetta Mona Chişa /SK, RO/ a Lucia Tkáčová /SK/, Tamara Moyzes /SK/, Jana Štěpánová /CZ/, Géza Szöllősi /HU/

Curator: Zuzana Štefková