‘Sleeping with a Vengeance, Dreaming of a Life’ at lítost

…. for each sleep is the true practice of hope, a long training at emancipation and freedom
– El Wardany, H. (2017) Book of Sleep. Cairo, Egypt: Al-Karma Books

Sleeping with a Vengeance, Dreaming of a Life takes a close look at contemporary politics of sleep and asks whether we can reclaim sleep and dreaming from the clutches of late capitalism. In Jonathan Crary’s book ‘24/7: Terminal Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep ‘, sleep has been turned into a resource, tied to production, consumption, warfare and biopolitics. We are simultaneously enticed to sleep less and to sleep productively. Contemporary cultural practice mimics this trend with sleep performances, sleep hotels, sleep music.

Can sleep instead be configured as a radical, subversive activity? Can the act of dreaming, sleep’s correlate, be imagined a political deed? If sleep were to obstruct the cycle of capitalist production and social reproduction, would the sleeper be able to dream up a better life, a better future?

Gülsün Karamustafa, “Somnambule”, 2018, paper collage, 21 x 29 cm. Photograph: Lenka Glisníková. © Courtesy of the artist and lítost

‘Sleeping with a Vengeance, Dreaming of a Life’, 2018, installation view. Photograph: Lenka Glisníková. © Courtesy of the artists and lítost

Sleeping with a Vengeance, Dreaming of a Life brings together artists from all walks of life and artworks from diverse cultural backgrounds in order to start understanding how we might share agency in a future politics of sleep. Concurrently, the curatorial model of the exhibition series is based on a much- needed ecology of scale. Starting with next to no budget and working with the smallest of institutions, the first exhibitions are conceived as sketches to be fleshed out, gaining momentum over the next couple of years.

The series was opened with 21 artists at Yellow Brick, Athens, in July 2018. The exhibition at lítost will host 29 positions, before continuing on to the Institute for Provocation, Beijing in October 2018.

Sleeping with a Vengeance, Dreaming of a Life includes a performance by Anna Daučíková that will be held outside of the Swiss Embassy, Pevnostní 7, Střešovice, Prague the night before the opening on 30 August 2018 from 10pm and a performance by Gangart at lítost during the preview.

Baha Görkem Yalım, The inside which is merely the fold of the outside, as if the ship were a folding of the sea, 2018, single-channel colour video with sound, 18:25 mins. Photograph: Lenka Glisníková. © Courtesy of the artist and lítost

Anna Daučíková, in cooperation with Jiřím Thýnem, “Towards the Visa”, 2018, photographic collage, colour photographs and transparent foil, 25 x 30 cm. Photograph: Lenka Glisníková. © Courtesy of the artist and lítost

Dominique Hurth, “one must lull them to sleep to prevent their escapes”, 2018, posters, fabri, cast, objects, dimensions variable. Photograph: Lenka Glisníková. © Courtesy of the artist and lítost

‘Sleeping with a Vengeance, Dreaming of a Life’, 2018, installation view. Photograph: Lenka Glisníková. © Courtesy of the artists and lítost

‘Sleeping with a Vengeance, Dreaming of a Life’, 2018, installation view. Photograph: Lenka Glisníková. © Courtesy of the artists and lítost

‘Sleeping with a Vengeance, Dreaming of a Life’, 2018, installation view. From left: Annette Ruenzler, “Übersprungschlaf”, 2006-2018, pigmentliner, silver paint, newspaper cutouts/paper, 29.6 x 21 cm and Agata Cieślak, “Part of It reminds me of something, but I can’t tell you what”, 2018, crystalized objects, variable sizes. Photograph: Lenka Glisníková. © Courtesy of the artists and lítost