Martin Zet | Cheap Statues
07/10/22–15/01/23

Sculptor, performance artist, and multimedia creator Martin Zet presents his video Cheap Statues (Laciné sochy, 1999) in the Black Box. Filmed in New York in 1999, the video is part of GMU’s Moving Image Collection. In the film, the author explores the similarity in form and absurd dissimilarity in content of skyscrapers and plastic bottles. The video shows plastic bottles being filled with hot water and comically keeling over against a background of skyscrapers. Today’s spectator might view the video through the lens of the events of 11 September 2001, which retrospectively imbue the video with another layer of meaning.

The video is supplemented by the work Crowns and Dollars (Koruny a Dolary, 1999–2022) – a wooden chest with Czech and American paper money on the lid. Zet cut each paper bill into the number of pieces corresponding to its monetary value. The fact that the greater the value of the bill, the smaller the pieces it must be cut into, may lead us to consider the relative value of money.

Martin Zet expresses himself in the form of performance art or digital and physical manipulation. His works, which don’t lack in humor, often react to political and social events and deal with history and the examination of the role of the artist.