‘Poise’ by Kristína Chrasteková and Tommy Høvik at Nevan Contempo

How do we achieve poise in today’s fluid, unstable world, which is constantly presenting us with new challenges and offering endless temptations and distractions? This is the question posed in the joint exhibition of videos by Kristína Chrasteková (SK) and the installations and collages of Tommy Høvik (NOR). In her remixed video sequences Chrasteková searches for moments of instability in the risky movements of athletes, heroically balancing their trajectories, while Høvik targets the same point from the opposite direction. From simple motifs he creates scenery and an environment that destabilises not only himself but the surrounding reality. Both artists finally meet at a fraught point of intersection: poise is not a state but a continuous and never-ending process.

Departing from the magic realism of her previous projects, the latest work of Kristína Chrasteková explores the themes of free will and motivation. She defines them very abstractedly, as a symbolic post-internet allegory. The form matches this, appropriating found film material into new sequences and exhibition constellations. The athletes thus become the archetypal heroes, balancing on the verge of the abyss. Another video by Chrasteková approaches the question of poise differently, asking to what degree we are subjected to others. Where do our current motivational principles bring us? Is our life not a quotidian yet urgent hypnosis, one which we need to shake off in order to find mutual trust and commitment?

Kristina Chrastekova, Tommy Hovik_ Poise, exhibition view. Photo Peter Fabo

Kristina Chrastekova, Tommy Hovik_ Poise, exhibition view. Photo Peter Fabo

Kristina Chrastekova, Tommy Hovik_ Poise, exhibition view. Photo Peter Fabo

Kristina Chrastekova, Tommy Hovik_ Poise, exhibition view. Photo Peter Fabo

Tommy Høvik can be described as a romantic post-conceptualist. The wide range of genres and techniques which he works with always starts from the most general objects and information, but proceeds to the most touching personal issues always retaining a deliberate and elegant ambiguity. The dimensions of the water weights derive from his own body measurements, and the holiday run over the water’s surface refers both to the Christian tradition, as well as to the nostalgia of past summer days. The collage with Matisse‘s dancers is complemented by a sinister ghost, and the romantic idea of a nest being carried by the ocean brands itself into brain by means of an irritating neon. The ephemeral fuses with fatality, and the banal reverses into the spiritual.

Kristina Chrastekova, Tommy Hovik_ Poise, exhibition view. Photo Peter Fabo

Kristina Chrastekova, Tommy Hovik_ Poise, exhibition view. Photo Peter Fabo

Kristina Chrastekova, Tommy Hovik_ Poise, exhibition view. Photo Peter Fabo

Kristina Chrastekova, Tommy Hovik_ Poise, exhibition view. Photo Peter Fabo

The joint exhibition of Kristína Chrasteková and Tommy Høvik is the outcome of a free dialogue about the possibilities of simultaneous experience of our own ambitions, successes and failures, the constant fluctuations between resistance and revolt, between trouble and hope – about a balance that is always already redeemed by diligent effort and occasional humility.