Denisa Langrová: Avian Omen

10. 5. – 2. 6. 2024
opening: 9. 5. 2024 from 6 pm

curator: Ruta Putramentaite

Avian Omen ~ Trouble in the Air 

In the realm of what people think is true, is true, a dying owl was found and saved by Vėja.

While Vėja was nursing the bird back to life, they learned each other's language. They were able to communicate, even if both of them knew that part of what they said to each other would always be lost, misunderstood, miscommunicated. 

Owl told Vėja several things*: 

Birds are made of stories.

No bird ever dies even if she does.

All birds that have ever lived share a common memory.

Birds taught humans how to build their cities from rocky mountains. 

Birds learned from humans:

- the idea of names;

- the idea of “the future” (a kind of new land of plenty that comes to replace the old one);

- the idea of time that emerges out of space;

- the idea of an afterlife, which they have adapted into their own—a land where dead birds fly.

Many birds have flown to and have returned from this land.

The trick of thinking, that the world could be different than it was, and therefore to wish it was. We wish they would never come over the mountain, over the river, we wish they would have never come at all. 

~~~

When Owl’s health recovered and she was able to fly away, the owl gave Vėja a new eye in place of her broken one. The eye shined from the inside. 

~~~

*This is an interpretation, rather a direct rendering of bird speech. If human speech was used to replace bird speech—different in meaning and in effect—it is because there was no other choice. 

The program of the Jeleni Gallery is possible through kind support of Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Prague City Council, State Fund of Culture of the Czech Republic, City District Prague 7, 
GESTOR – The Union for the Protection of Authorship
Thanks: Ondřej Konrád, Jonáš Richter, Vladislav Švestka
Media partners: ArtMap, artalk.cz and jlbjlt.net