In his work “DeepReal Havel”, the artist draws on his long-term interest in capturing local–implying mostly Czechoslovak or Czech–identity in relation to non-European cultures. The work revolves around the speech of Václav Havel, which was delivered by the former Czech president on the occasion of receiving the Indira Gandhi Prize in 1994. In a collaborative process involving researchers Ondřej Horký-Hlucháň and Tomáš Profant, etc. gallery and Jiří Žák, the original text was rewritten based on the insights of postcolonial studies and the historical distance of almost 30 years. The resulting film re-evaluates the thought of a politician who has become an international symbol of the nonviolent defeat of totalitarian Soviet regimes and their transition to capitalist democracy. The theoretically and visually updated reading of Havel’s speech takes distance from the symbolic aura of his persona and adopts a new perspective on the relation between post-Soviet Czech society, Western countries, and non-European others.
Jiří Žák is an artist based in Prague. In his audiovisual works, he often combines documentary, staged, and performative strategies to explore topics related to contemporary visual culture, local history, and postcolonial world order.
