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Bromová's magic mushroom temple

Egyptian goddess inspires a psychedelic burst of Czech creativity
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By Tony Ozuna
For The Prague Post
May 2nd, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Mushrooms sprout everywhere, including the centerpiece of the exhibit, a stylized jar-cum-handbag.
For most of the 1990s, Veronika Bromová was a media darling, not only for being a champion of new media in Czech art, but for exploring personal issues of sexuality in her art with an unabashed candidness. Czech feminists as well as Westerners praised this early work, though Bromová herself shied away from that tag.
In recent years Bromová hasn’t been as visible on the local scene, which is a loss for Czechs, because her work is as provocative as ever. Her current exhibition at Hunt Kastner Artworks, “HaHathor’s Handbag,” was inspired by her travels in Egypt, and in particular by the mythical goddess Hathor.
Veronika Bromová: HaHathor's Handbag

at Hunt Kastner Artworks
Ends May 22. Kamenická 22, Prague 7–Letná.
Open Tues.–Fri. 1–6 p.m., Sat. 2–6 p.m. or by appointment; call 233 376 259.

In 2003 Bromová (born in Prague in 1966) was traveling around Egypt, where, at the ancient temple of Dender, she was struck by the visual and spiritual mystery of Hathor, a goddess of fertility and earthly pleasures who to this day has devoted followers. There was a relief on a stone that especially captivated her: It showed a woman carrying something resembling an amphora, but of an unusual shape — it resembled a woman’s handbag, and looked as if it had mushrooms sprouting out of its sides.
This image became the basis of five digitally manipulated psychedelic self-portraits, or inner journeys. Bromová originally exhibited them in Sweden in 2005–06 as part of a traveling group exhibition titled “Content — the Handbag in Contemporary Art.”
These works are being shown for the first time in the Czech Republic, where Bromová has also included her own contemporary replica of the handbag. Hung from the ceiling in the center of the gallery so that it just touches a mound of sand on a white pedestal, HaHathor’s Magic Mushroom Handbag is a delicate and sacred-looking ceramic and metal jar with mushrooms springing from it. The object evokes trance or transmeditative imagery, and the self-portraits surrounding it enhance the effect.
At the foreground of her self-portraits are “magic” mushrooms that look like fragile, wisp-stemmed little fairies. (The same type of psilocybin mushrooms are sprouting from the ceramic jar.) These digitally produced mushrooms are abundant in all five photographs, swarming like bees around the artist in her various incarnations.
In Entrance to the Shine, a bare-breasted Bromová in heavy black heels and black hair down to her knees, with her handbag on her wrist, exits a cave into a rainbow vortex of shining sunlight. The Real Face of Hathor shows the artist with long blonde hair and bull’s horns, squatting naked in a corner beside a cow and its fresh dung in a heap of hay. Egyptian hieroglyphs line the walls of this dirty barn-temple, and at the doorway stands the artist again, naked and only partly visible in the blinding sunlight.
In Gifts of the Nun, a naked Bromová bathes in a sacred pond in the jungle with her arms raised in worship to the floating magic mushroom handbag. Goddesses of Fertility shows multiples of the artist in kaleidoscopic vision, reaching down to pick mushrooms with one hand and holding her handbag with the other — and this time, the magic mushroom jar is glowing with a golden liquid flowing from it into the ground. Finally, in Flight Me, Bromová is a naked rocket soaring through outer space with stars on her arms and forehead, her mushroom handbag floating beside her.
In order to achieve the intimacy of an ancient temple for her photo installation, Bromová had the windows of the gallery covered with black cloth and the wide windowsills on the inside of the gallery covered with sand and small candles. She also cut out small squares in the cloth so that outsiders (or at least adults who are tall enough) can peek inside. This addition gives the exhibit, intentionally or not, the air of a forbidden peep show attraction.
What is the mystery of the handbag in the ancient Egyptian temple? As always with Bromová, its basis is unabashed sexuality in all its pleasures (as opposed to the discomfort seen in much of her earlier work). And in this work there’s an embrace of myth and spirituality, with a healthy side order of psychedelic mushrooms. Overall, it’s a welcome and long-overdue solo outing by this first-rate, steadfastly experimental new-media artist.

Tony Ozuna can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (2/05/2007):

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