O něco horší než Romeo: tragédie z rozmaru

Karina Kottová held the position of head curator at the MeetFactory since 2012 to 2015. During this time, she focused her efforts primarily on having the Czech scene contextualized, as well as on better interconnection with international artists. Her exhibition projects did not only have significant international participation, but also confronted artists across all generations and artistic media. Kottová had worked with the context and possibilities of MeetFactory as a platform uniting several program lines and areas of artistic work under one roof. Her intention was to catalyze inter-genre projects and encourage more intensive collaboration through the search of a common point of contact, which eventually lead to the tight interconnection of a theatre performance with an exhibition titled Somewhat Worse than Romeo: Tragedy out of Humour (2015).

This experimental project originated as a joint artistic venture of Karina Kottová and the dramaturgist of MeetFactory’s theatre sector, Matěj Samec. Their conception was based on three literary sources: Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, The Seducer’s Diary by Sørena Kierkegaarda and Dark Matter by Juli Zeh. Based on these works, their primary motive was love as a paradox archetype that cyclically appears throughout centuries, accompanies us during our lives, and constantly repeats itself in a familiar, yet always surprising colour. The story that Karina Kottová and Matěj Samec created, goes through individual phases, positions and forms of love, and observes phenomena such as passion, seduction and self-destruction. This idea, gradually gave birth to one theatrical-creative whole, on the production of which participated sculptor, Jan Haubelt, actress, Halka Třešňáková and director, Viktorie Čermáková.

The final outcome of the creative part of the project originated from the collaboration of curator Karina Kottová and artists Jan Haubelt and Jiří Thýn. It had the character of a spatial installation, which fundamentally transformed the aura of the gallery, creating a specific atmosphere that could appear as an independent exhibition, as well as a distinct scenography for a theatrical performance. Jan Haubelt contributed with a series of monumental rotating sculptures evoking figures on a large chessboard. The silhouettes of individual statues were inspired by the famous typographical collages of Karel Teige, which accompany Nezval’s poem Alphabet and are inspired by associative dancing positions resembling individual letters of the alphabet. Furthermore, in addition to the statues, there was a brick wall with an imprint of the human body as a sort of fossil or expressive suggestion. These object and their specific constellation were significant for the production and theatrical choreography because the actors of the theatrical performance were actively working with the scene. The lighting production by Jiří Thýn provided finishing touches to and unified the spatial installation.