Juliana Höschlová | Tears for Fears
21/06/24–06/10/24

Tears for Fears is a British synthpop band founded in the 1980s. Its name was inspired by so-called primal therapy, developed by the American psychologist Arthur Janov. This form of therapy is founded on an exploration of childhood traumas, which may be the source of problems that last into adulthood. “Tears for fears” thus refers to the healing power of crying as a way of overcoming fear or anxiety. The concept of coming to terms with (environmental) trauma by appropriating pop songs forms an important aspect of the life of multimedia artist Juliana Höschlová and has been a part of her work for several years. An important source of inspiration for this exhibition is the motif of water in the form of a creek near the artist’s home. With the progressive impact of climate change, however, the creek’s visual form and sound have changed, thus confronting us with a number of questions. How to come to terms with the disappearance of something over which we have no control? How to mourn so that we do not succumb to passive resignation but instead find the strength to follow new paths? Can we reconcile ourselves with the fact that the world as we knew it no longer exists and that, in some places, life is becoming impossible?

In the gallery’s Black Cube, Juliana Höschlová shares her experience of living directly and purely in harmony with a specific place in the Giant Mountains, a place that she has become a part of. Shining in the middle of the room is a glass object in the form of the creek that flows through the valley where she lives, filled with its water. The exhibition also includes brightly coloured paintings of highly endangered species of flowers from the Giant Mountains. In the video Everybody Wants to Rule the World (2024), she has turned the band’s famous song into a horror-like essay containing the occasional flash of hope while emphasising the mourning for something that is disappearing. She uses the language of art in order to find ways of overcoming the fear of the future and to not be afraid to act and join forces with others, including non-human beings. Because it may be late, but we are still together and there are still things we can do so that it won’t get worse.

Juliana Höschlová (born 1987) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. During her studies, she spent a year on a study placement in Taiwan. She now lives and works in the Krkonoše Mountains. She has a long-standing interest in the relationship between humans and the environment in which they live. She was awarded the NG333 Prize in 2010. On the domestic scene, she has exhibited at National Gallery Prague, Brno House of Arts, Pardubice City Gallery, the experimental Galerie NoD, MeetFactory, Karlin Studios, and Galerie 35m2. Abroad, her works have been shown at Akademie Graz in Austria, the Odessa Biennial, the Pince Project in Budapest, VT Artsalon in Taipei, Reykjavik, and this year at the TIVA (Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition) in Taipei. She has completed several residencies abroad: in Austria, Hungary, Taiwan, and Ukraine. She is the co-founder of the Návštěva (“Visit”) project, aimed at presenting video-art that has the potential for critical thinking, and in 2010 she worked on Field/Políčko, a project charting Taipei’s contemporary art scene. Shortly before the pandemic, she also helped to organise the Umění pro klima (“Art for the Climate”) platform.

The exhibition was supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the Statutory City of Hradec Králové.