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Scheißliche Ostblocker“ Boris Ondreicčka In most of his drawings, installations or texts (which deal with perception and memory) Boris Ondreicˇka uses popular music. His wall text “Scheissliche Ostblocker” was formulated after Nina Simone, the singer who was among those who contributed most to the success of soul music, and who kept opposing discrimination and racism in her songs. “Scheissliche Ostblocker” may be one of the millions of abusive names for groups of people worldwide. Especially in popular culture, the appropriation of abusive names and words is part of the protest strategy. However, in his wall text, which itself could be the lyrics of a song, Ondreicˇka does not adopt appropriation as the sole principle. The sentences demonstrate who someone – from the point of view of the others – allegedly is and go through all possible offers of identity: personal relationships, gender, job, citizenship or questions of race. “They call me worker, fanatic, (black) passenger .... They call me freelance, unemployed, charlatan .... . They call me subject, inhabitant, citizen and Slovak. They call me foreigner, alien, European and obviously ‘Scheissliche Ostblocker’ .....” Who somebody is – is already qualified by the sheer number of words. Furthermore, some of them are even contradictory or at least quite different: “specialist, junkie, newcomer and of course (visual) artist.” This series divests the words of their meaning. The “I” remains absent. It is that for which others find the names, but by which they always miss it. For even the “I” is only called “I” by others: “They call me ‘I’ – ‘me’.” Artist, born 1969, lives and works in Bernolákovo and Bratislava. |
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