Jana Želibská (*1941)
Concert for Cymbals and “Breasts”, 1993 – 1994
video installation, TV set, VCR, colour, sound, 5´9´´, loop, wood, plastic
acquired by purchasing from the author in 1995
Želibská, who pioneers Slovak video art, started dealing with corporeality and female eroticism already in the late sixties. The expressive apparatus of her intermedia works in the form of objects and environment art from the period represented a unique platform of domestic feminist art. Her interest in these issues prevailed in the following decades, when she approached it mostly through action forms of art. Želibská’s video installations from the nineties reflect the attributes of female corporeality, along with deconstructing or relativizing the traditional patterns of the perception of women. In the video, Želibská uses her specific poetics to capture the nuances and vicissitudes of the transformation of female teenagers towards womanhood. The presented installation—based on cymbals (represented through sound) and plexiglas covers as allusions of female breasts—utilizes new media to extend its interpretation possibilities.
