Blasted Heath at A.M.180 gallery / Prague


Blasted Heath with ASMA, Kinke Kooi, Siggi Sekira, Zhou Siwei, Viktor Timofeev
Curated by Monika Čejková

14th Feb – 3rd Mar 2020

A.M. 180 Gallery
Jeronýmova 9
130 00 Prague










Photo credits Jakub Hájek and František Hanousek
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This exhibition by artists Asma, Kinke Kooi, Siggi Sekira, Zhou Siwei and Viktor Timofeev, is loosely inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s 1927 book “The Colour Out of Space”, in which “Blasted Heath” is a place above Arkham, a fictional town located in New England that appears in a number of Lovecraft’s texts. This is where the story of the destruction of a family farm, caused by the crash of a meteorite shrouded with unearthly powers, takes place.
Through the artworks on show, the exhibition works with the de-hierarchization of the interpretation of Lovecraft’s novel. At the same time, it examines how Lovecraft gives voice to contemporary fears of physical and psychological infection. The model for the selection of works and artists is largely inspired by the period from the book known as the “strange days”. Signaling impending danger, the period is characterized by a transformation of the local vegetation, which reaches abnormal heights, exudes bizarre odors and takes on atypical shades of colour. This radiant psychedelic phenomenon is reflected in some of the exhibited artworks (Asma, Kinke Kooi, Zhou Siwei); in the case of Siggi Sekira or Viktor Timofeev, they also address forms of dark mystical destruction, one of the book’s themes.