Kandariya – Mahadeva

Jana Želibská created Kandariya – Mahadeva a year after her residency in Paris. The title refers to an Indian palace from the 11th century and to Hindu tantric rituals with erotic overtones. The installation includes several oversized, stylised female figures rendered in a rich pink. The diamond-shaped or oval opening in the groin area is linked by a pinky-white garland of paper flowers, which also frames an image. The original installation was shown at the Václav Špála Gallery on the instigation of Jindřich Chalupecký. It was originally planned to spill out onto the pavement and street, by means of a rectangular banner folded on each side from twelve smaller styles silhouettes of female bodies. However, given the explicitly sexual subtext and the political situation at that time, this part was not permitted. The work remains a milestone in Želibská’s work, with its multilayered character and themes typical of her work. The silhouettes resemble pop-culture dancers with flowers heralding the era of flower power and free love.

Kandariya – Mahadeva was also deemed a proto-feminist work critiquing the patriarchy, making its narrative highly topical. Given the original idea of intervening in public space, we can also speak of a relationship with land art, even though this was not intended as a transformation of nature but an intervention in the urban landscape that would have been unexpected, adventurous and courageous for its time. It was intended to disrupt the customary order of things, reveal (human) nature in an unexpected way and offer a new perspective on the quotidian in a similar way to several later works linked directly with land art. In general it is also a good example of Želibská’s pioneering tendencies and her fearlessness when exploring new directions.