Jiří Žák’s work is characterised by an essayistic approach, through which he processes complex themes in nuanced form and formulates his own multi-layered interpretation, working primarily in the medium of the moving image. He draws on postcolonial studies in order to examine the relationship of post-communist countries in Eastern Europe to non-European regions. He focuses on how our past and present status within the global network of power and privilege is rewritten in our perception of national identity and political behaviour. He also examines how media and political power interact and how these interactions affect attitudes and sentiments in society, especially in relation to otherness.
Žák approaches artistic creation as a method of cognition and reflection that does not rely only on rational thinking. Its aim is to shift, question or critically reconsider the established and seemingly fixed frameworks or perspectives that we as individuals and society possess. His works are based on extensive research and analysis accompanied by self-reflection. However, he avoids a documentary and didactic approach. Instead, he uses subjective, emotional and poetic language to trace multiple levels of meaning, stories and forms of narrative. His works are structured by layered meanings and expressive devices. Image, sound, space, time, movement and language are tools for creating a story line, but they also embody content in themselves, evoke associations and create atmosphere. Through this cumulative process, connections and links are created that open the way for intuitive and emotional thinking. This is inscribed not only in the videos themselves, but in their presentation in the form of installations and environments that are immersive in nature and provide the audience with additional intertextual connections.
In Žák’s early works, the theme of the family archive and the selectivity of memory emerges as important. Here, the artist reflects on the process of creating, selecting and organising archives, as well as the collective consciousness of this process in performing one’s own life in front of the camera. In the video I’ve Got It All Right Here (2013), Žák uses the story of his grandfather, Vladimír Stuchlík, to explore the functions of documenting family and personal life through the eye of the camera. Vladimír Stuchlík imprints his presence, gaze and narrative on this archive, simultaneously adding his own level of meaning and interpretation. Žák then continues to develop these ideas in his video Du forma (2015), where he uses a child’s narration in German interspersed with family photographs in order to problematise just what it is that family archives communicate to us. The fact is that, right from the start, family photographs are taken so as to be included in a collection of memories, and so the person operating the camera – like the people standing in front of it – chooses specific moments whilst also staging what they want captured and preserved for the future and posterity.
Already in these works a fundamental theme emerges, which the artist then addresses throughout his work, and that is the question of narrative. Žák is interested in stories and their political potential. Postcolonial theories point out that narrative is an instrument of power that produces, reinforces, justifies and normalises forms of superiority and oppression. The use of the term “narrative” is deliberate, the aim being to illustrate that this is a story being told from a particular perspective that is shaped by particular experiences and conditions. In doing so, it problematises the belief that there is one grand, universal story, and instead presents a multiplicity of disparate narratives forming a complex mosaic of our world. Žák often traces the dominant narrative and explores what this hegemonic perspective leaves out. He tries to deviate from the usual point of view, which both highlights the fabrication of the singular perspective and allows us to see the stories that have been obscured by this dominant perspective.
In the video Mateřské město / Mother Town (2015), Žák focused on little-known events related to the history of his hometown Zlín, which is inextricably linked to the Bata company. He reflected upon the heritage of this company, which in the Czech Republic is almost always perceived positively. It is for this reason that the video and its narrative begin in the local museum, in an exhibition dedicated to the famous family and its company. The museum provides an important framework whose function is symbolic and which is also confronted with a critical counter-narrative that undermines its singular narrative. In the video, the protagonist walks amongst the exhibits and tells the story in Portuguese of the Bata colonisation of Brazilian territories. These have been completely transformed, with the original rainforest gradually replaced by pasture, reservoirs built on rivers, and the appearance of new factories and towns. This transformation is reflected in archival footage of Brazil, which is interspersed with scenes from the Museum of Southeast Moravia and black-and-white images of operating machines and working people. Meanwhile, several levels of language are layered in the narrator’s account – expansive words describing plans for development, construction and industrialisation alternate with dialogue that captures the interaction between newcomers and locals, reflecting power inequalities and paternalism in relation to others. The video mixes the familiar and the unfamiliar, and there is a contrast and tension present that challenges us to consider what we don’t know about our own past and what it means for understanding our contemporary identity.
In a series of videos entitled České ASMR (2016–2017), Žák appropriates the popular format of videos that supposedly evoke in viewers the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response of the title associated with feelings of relaxation and calm. This type of video usually lacks deeper content and focuses mainly on sensory experience. Žák’s works, on the other hand, feature a performer whispering about the Czech arms industry and its exports to North Africa and Southwest Asia, or about the functioning of the Czech economy on the global market. She strokes an atlas borrowed from the library, disassembles a weapon or unwraps candies, which she then crushes into dust. In this way, she imitates activities common in ASMR videos, although the objects and activities on show here are not only chosen for their sound qualities, but in order to complement and further develop the performer’s narrative. Žák has published this series on YouTube, making it available to a different type of audience than that of art galleries. It is evident from the comments that some viewers were surprised by the confrontation with the unplanned content and were prompted to reflect on it, while others were indifferent and projected their own expectations onto the videos.
The following works, Lovcova noc / Hunter’s Night (2016), Rozštěpený epistemolog / Split Epistemologist (2017) and Neglect Syndrome Politics (2017) open a new thematic chapter in Žák’s work. Here, he focuses on media issues, the dissemination of information in the digital age, and the polarisation and fragmentation of society. In the video Hunter’s Night, he explores the topic of disinformation and its role in shaping public opinion regarding the military conflict in Syria. The focus of the video is an anonymous statement, a monologue by an unknown person who shares his thoughts on the production, fabrication and manipulation of information. It is an engaged narrative that suggests that the narrator is not just an outside observer, but someone who is directly involved in this world. This narrative is further complemented by the setting of the video, an empty office building. An unknown guide and cameraman simultaneously walk through the abandoned corridors and rooms, gradually uncovering remnants, possible evidence that suggests that there was a troll farm in the past. These shots are punctuated by blurred, oscillating images of ruined buildings and fragments of faces, silhouettes and landscapes. These are images that are meant to appeal to the public and evoke empathy, but in the current media situation they can be used in any way. The result is paralysis and detachment on the part of the public as a result of being overwhelmed by contradictory information in which it is impossible to find a stable, reliable statement or truth.
This work is followed by the video Rozštěpený epistemolog / Split Epistemologist (2017), which touches on the topic of post-truth. In it, the artist asks the following questions: What knowledge can we rely on? And what can help us navigate the daily flood of news? The dancer Meïmouna Coffi alternates between showing her right and left hand while describing which hand it is. It seems simple and straightforward, but her movement and spoken word gradually accelerate and what was previously distinct – right, left, up, down – begins to merge. The movements that are so familiar to us and that help us control our mobile phones, tablets, laptops or smart watches are transformed here into a captivating and confusing dance. The choreography is interspersed with shaky, fragmented footage and a verbal narrative that sometimes comes from the mouth of the performer and sometimes appears written on the screen. Fragments, quotations, perspectives and voices are thus layered in the video in a dizzying collage reminiscent of the very fragmentation that dominates contemporary times.
The three-channel video Neglect Syndrome Politics (2017) again combines the movement and narrative performance of one protagonist, this time taking the polarisation of society as its theme. The story shows how one side rejects the other, resulting in a gradual existential incongruity. This conflict is rewritten into the actor’s statement, and especially into his physicality, as one part of his body gradually ceases to communicate with the other, and movement becomes increasingly difficult and impossible. This video, like Hunter’s Night and The Split Epistemologist, takes place in an empty building. This is not, however, a neutral space. The emptiness here has its own level of meaning, interacting with the performers and the camera to create tension, while opening up space for the imagination of the audience. The movement and persuasion of the performer is neither explicit nor descriptive. The aim is not to encompass the subject in its totality, but to explore its emotional positions and to provoke suggestions for intuitive and associative thinking.
Another work, Incantation of the Real (2019), continues in this vein, presenting a soundscape created by combining the sounds of nature, electronic music and several voices and chants in Czech, Arabic and English. Interwoven with ritual chants and incantations, the poetic narrative responds to the advancing climate crisis and its devastating impact on the Levant region, which is incomparably greater than that currently being experienced in Europe. The narrative of the work highlights the short-sightedness and privileging of the environmental demands of the global North and their complicity in global climate problems. At the same time, however, it is – like other works by Žák – emotionally engaged: the ritual chanting of corporations and global powers is not a rational critique, but rather a feeling-based way of coping with environmental anxiety and grief.
Incantation of the Real reflects Žák’s return to considerations of Central and Eastern Europe and its relationship to post-colonialism. The artist has long interrogated the belief that Czech society is not affected by colonialism and neo-colonialism. He points to the various forms of international and transnational economic, political and cultural relations from which the Czech Republic and neighbouring countries benefit without perceiving the need to reflect on their role in the consolidation of global inequalities. This critique is also voiced in Deep Real Havel (2020), in which Žák uses deepfake technology to revamp Václav Havel’s speech on the occasion of his acceptance of the Indira Gandhi Prize in 1994. The original speech, in which Havel highlights decolonialism and the fall of communism as the most significant events of the second half of the 20th century, has been rewritten by the author in collaboration with researchers Ondřej Horký-Hlucháň and Tomáš Profant against the backdrop of contemporary postcolonial theories. Together, they reassess Havel’s ideas and point to their anchoring within the contemporary context. At the same time, they update his commentary on the current state of the world and, in a new version, draw attention to the effects of Western neoliberalism and capitalist democracy, particularly the deepening of inequalities and the worsening of the climate crisis. The vision of a globalised, pluralistic world, regarding which Havel spoke quite idealistically in 1994, becomes more self-critical and emphasises the importance of co-responsibility in endeavours to achieve global justice. Using deepfake technology, the familiar face of Havel merges with the faces of the performers, only to dissolve once more and return to the original features of the actor and actress. In this way, Žák does not try to rewrite history in a revisionist way – instead, he leaves a link to the past and an imprint of the past in the present. It is in this historical layering that he offers space for thinking about the next steps into the future.
In 2018 and 2019, Žák again began to address the issue of the Czech and Czechoslovak arms industry and its cooperation with non-European states. He had already touched on this topic in Czech ASMR and, after several years, he further developed it in his long-term multimedia project Epilog dlouhého přátelství / Epilogue of a Long Friendship, in which he explored the economic and political relations of Czechoslovakia – and later the Czech Republic – with Syria. The project is divided into chapters, each of which develops one thematic line in depth, outlining the genesis, context and background of the dynamics of Czech-Syrian cooperation, the political strategies across governmental regimes, the concept of Czech national identity, and the importance of the arms industry in international relations. The artist seeks the interconnections between past and present and examines how this relationship shapes historical and contemporary narratives, perceptions of our identity, and definitions of ourselves in relation to others. This theme is further explored in Nedokončený milostný dopis / Unfinished Love Letter (2022), in which he uses the metaphor of a love letter to examine the Czech-Syrian economic relationship and, with it, the question of what role the Czech arms industry played in it. Here, he points out how political and economic elites have sought to downplay this aspect of Czech history, along with the significance and extent of their cooperation. He avails himself of the tension created by confronting the image of a peaceful and insignificant Czech nation with historical and recent events that suggest otherwise.
Žák is currently exploring in more detail the Czech Republic’s relations with the region of South-West Asia.[1] He continues to examine the diplomatic role of the Czech arms industry, while also looking at other aspects of military conflicts in the region. He and the theatre group 8lidí, for example, prepared a series of lectures for the public with invited guests, who discussed the issue from different angles. The aim was to open up the first, research part of the project to the audience, and to define it as a participatory process. These lectures are part of a jointly prepared theatre project We love shooting, which will focus on the influence of the Czech Republic within the global context of contemporary military conflicts.
His long-term work on themes that reflect unequal power relations or the question of privilege, and above all problematise hegemonic narratives and the production of otherness from the perspective of postcolonial theories, led Žák to a more general reflection on decolonisation and its relationship to art. In 2022, he prepared a curated selection of art videos for Artyčok.tv entitled Zamést si před vlastním prahem / Sweep Your Own Threshold, in the introductory text to which he introduces the current discourse surrounding this topic. He situates it within a local geopolitical framework, while at the same time reflecting on what this discourse brings to artistic and cultural practice and what pitfalls might be involved. In a text written a year earlier entitled Neautoritativní poznámky k dekolonizaci v současném umění / Non-authoritative Notes on Decolonization in Contemporary Art, a contribution to the zine on the occasion of Gutta’s performance at Cross Attic (2021), Žák reflected on the practical aspects of decolonisation in artistic practice and defined some of the principles of his decolonising work.
[1] Within the context of decolonisation, the term “Middle East” is considered problematic. This designation originated during the British colonisation of the regions of South West and West Asia and was based on a Eurocentric view of the region. Currently, the proposed alternative is either a geographical name or a name based on the cultural regions used by the populations of these areas themselves: for example, the Levant, the Mashriq and the Maghreb. In recent years, the WANA or SWANA region – from the English (South) West Asia and North Africa – has also been used to include North Africa in addition to (South) West Asia. However, these discussions are dynamic and different communities prefer different designations. It is always best to consult and listen to people who come from the region.
