*Performative Reading, 29 September 2015, 9 p.m., Trade Fair Palace*
In Plato's criticism, poetry forbids a discursive thought, *dianoia*, the thought that traverses. The poem dwells on the threshold; it is "not a rule-bound crossing, but rather an offering, a lawless proposition". For 'Bifo' Berardi, on the contrary but also paradoxically in a similar manner, the poetry is "an excess of language, a hidden resource which enables us to shift from one paradigm to another".
With Slovak artist, Boris Ondreička's performative "poem in progress", "The Beginning and the End of the Passage", the National Gallery in Prague launches a new series of events whose aim is to emphasise the permanence of poetry and an importance of language. Improvised and spontaneous, it is a revived republic of letters which legitimates the space of words and activates the speech. Here, in this stage-cum-auditorium-like habitat of a blinded staircase, the performance, theatre, act of reading, writing and recitation collide and rehearse.
Ondreička's inaugural, site-specific textual installation, "The Beginning and the End of the Passage", conceived especially for the National Gallery in Prague, is a delirious manifesto of a poetic *flâneur*, structured by the historical and architectural principle of functionalism. Combining institutional self-criticism and neo-dadaist desire of a (linguistic) autonomy, it is the artist's praise of *poiesis* as a vehicle of world-making.
"Cultures with richer vocabularies are more fully human – farther removed from the beasts – than those with poorer ones; individual men and women are more fully human when their memories are amply stocked with verses", the philosopher Richard Rorty concludes.
Curated by Adam Budak.
Free entry
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**Boris Ondreička**, born 1969, is an artist, curator, author and singer based in Bratislava (SK).
He worked as project coordinator at **Soros Centre for Contemporary Arts**, Bratislava, and director of art-initiative **[tranzit.sk](http://tranzit.sk)**, Bratislava (SK). Since 2012 he has been working as curator at **Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary**, Vienna (AT).
He (co-)curated **Rare Earth**, **Supper Club**, **Ephemeropteræ** (since 2012 ongoing), **Tomorrow Morning Line** (with Franz Pomassl) all at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna (AT), and **Manifesta 8**, Murcia and Cartagena (ES), **Being The Future**, Palast der Republik, Berlin (DE), **Symposion** at The Event, Birmingham (UK), **Auditorium, Stage, Backstage**, Frankfurter Kunstverein (DE), **Poetic Materialism** at Soda, Bratislava (SK), and **individual projects** of Lois & Franziska Weinberger, Stano Filko, Andreas Neumeister, Július Koller, Denisa Lehocká, Zbyněk Baladrán, and other projects – all at tranzit Bratislava.
In 2010 he co-founded the **Július Koller Society**.
His artistic projects were exhibited at **Manifesta 2**, Luxembourg (L), **Venice-** (Czechoslovak & Roma pavilions), **Prague-**, **Gyumri-**, **Torino-**, **Anzengruber**-, **Tai-Pei-**, **Athens-** , **Jakarta-** and the most recently **Kyiv biennales**; **PS1** NYC (USA), **BAK** Utrecht (NL), **W139** and **De Appel**, Amsterdam (NL), **Smak**, Gent (BE), **Kunsthalle Loppem** (BE), **Marres**, Maastricht (NL), **Tramway** Glasgow (UK), **Fondazione Sandretto re Regaudengo** Turin (IT), **Le Plateau**, and **Galerie Jocelyn Wolff**, both Paris (F), **Frankfurter-, Kölnischer-, Badischer-, Münchener-, Stuttgarter Kunstvereins** (DE), **Kiasma**, Helsinki (FI), **HKW**, Berlin (DE), **ACAF**, Alexandria (EG), **e-flux** online, **Slovak** National Gallery, Bratislava (SK), **The National Gallery in Prague**, Prague (CZ), **Secession**, **Mumok**, **Kunsthalle –** all Vienna (AT), **Donaufestival**, Krems (AT), **Cycle 2015**, Reykjavik (Island), **Magazin 4**, Bregenz (AT), **KJUBH** Cologne (DE), and elsewhere.
His **HI! lo.** was published at jrp Ringier, and **One Second / Out of Time** at Revolver. Since 1987 is a lead-singer and lyrics writer of the band **Kosa z nosa**, Bratislava, SK.
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#### Franco 'Bifo' Berardi: Language limit and excess
*Lecture, 30 September 2015, 7 p.m., Trade Fair Palace*
What happened to poetical language during the century of abstraction?
What is happening to the social body, what is happening to the erotic body in the digital age? Finance as a language. The limits of language and the limits of the world. Poetry as excess. Poetry is the coming back of the body in the space of financial abstraction.
Franco 'Bifo' Berardi was born in Bologna 65 years ago. He has been the founder of the magazine a/traverso and an animator of the Italian Movement of Autonomia. He published "The soul at work", "The uprising", and "Heroes". His next book, "and - phenomenology of the end" will be published by semiotexte at the end of the year.
With a generous support of Italian Embassy in Prague, Institutio Italiano di Cultura, Eleutheria Foundation and UniCredit Bank.
Lecture will be in English.
