Exhibition text / ‘Legacy of Cain’ at MinusOffspace, Vienna, Austria

17.9 - 31.10.2021

Catharsis is defined as “the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions“. It could be interpreted as an almost religious or spiritual experience, a moment of extreme rupture leading to a new consciousness. It’s also, however, a moment of violence. Can this violence be a progressive force and is catharsis only possible for an indivi- dual or can catharsis happen on a collective, structural level? These themes are central to Filip Lav’s exhibition, which explo- res the ambiguity of the forces that have historically tied us together, along with their potential to shape future cosmologies.

According to Plato’s theory of mimesis, violence is a founda- tional principle to processes of identification within commu- nities and how society has been organised. Indeed, the history of violence is intimately entangled with the history of power as the dividing line between “us” and “them”. In the Rousseauni- an, anarchic state of nature the right to violence was decentra- lised, leaving everyone to fend for themselves, followed by the age of the social contract, which consolidated that right within the hands of sovereign kings and the church, who channeled it into spectacular, public carnivals of death. Even though its agents and channels have become more obscured and abs- tract, violence is still deeply embedded within our modern modes of governance, our bureaucratic systems and contem- porary cosmology. It surrounds us as a jarring cloud of grue- some images of war and disease raging in other parts of the world, keeping us in a constant state of apathetic panic and anxiety. This fragmented violence has evolved with the individualistic logic of neoliberal capitalism as a product of a history of Western institutionalised violence, reincarnated in the omnipresent realm of the digital, which - somewhat ironically - seems to have gone full circle and embraced a new, neoliberal form of tribalism.

Filip Lav’s exhibition examines contemporary systems of be- lief within the framework of such a history of violence and pow- er and the duality of constructive and destructive forces. His practice fleshes out the symptoms of society’s present con- dition, characterised by a kind of collective alienation, anxiety and repressed stagnation. Inspired by the Actionists of the 60s, who wanted to breathe new life into the potential of art by generating such catharses within the existing establishment, the participatory performance calls forth a similar moment of rupture in the fabric of contemporary cosmology to seek a way out of inertia.

Lav synthesises various images and cultural references in order to map out a holistic history of present aesthetics. Interested in religion’s ability to shape visual and symbolic culture, forge col- lective social bodies and galvanise rituals of both care and vio- lence, he often integrates religious iconography in his works. An example is the central sculpture based on the stained glass win- dows of the St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, serving as an im- portant reference point to the performance. In turn, Lav’s pain- tings encapsulate a self-reflexive meditation on the relationship between identity and digital culture by referencing memes such as ‘bloomers’ and ‘doomers’, navigating his own idea of selfhood while also exploring systems of categorical identification gover- ning the logic of the virtual realm. These works are both sentimental and idealistic at the same time as capturing the escapist desperation, doubt and irony permeating the present moment.

By engaging the audience in a tale of moral ambiguity, Lav renders visible the theatrics of violence incubated within contem- porary society and digital culture, while attempting to channel that violence into a redemptive and libidinal catharsis as a force creating progressive future trajectories.

Sonja Teszler, September 2021

Sonja Teszler is an independent writer and curator based between London and Budapest with a practice focusing on the Eastern European diaspora and intersections of art and ecology. Her work has been published in Flash Art, Arts of the Working Class, thisistomorrow, Something Curated and Calvert Journal among others.