Neat and tidy, with a twist

Michaela Thelenová's show "When You Return Home From Work, It Will All Be Nicely Tidied Up ?" at Hunt Kastner Artworks consists of a new series of digital photographs and a three-part video that examine the inherent absurdities and even the unexpected poetry connected with the never-ending cycle of housework.

The artist sets up and shoots the scenarios in her own home, sometimes staging exaggerated recreations of actual domestic situations. The photos tread the line between reality and fiction with a dash of hyperbole and humor, veering from hyper-perfectionism with no shut-off mechanism to a domestic overdrive, the result of which is paradoxically more mess to clean.

The first extreme is epitomized by a photograph of folded clothes stacked on a white bed in a spotless, Spartan bedroom. The tower of folded laundry soars to the ceiling in monumental, almost architectural fashion.

A photo that shows bare feet poking out from underneath the bed and another photo in which a woman is poised precariously on a chair with one foot against the wall, apparently to dust the top of the wardrobe, suggest cleaning missions being performed in places that are both difficult to reach and not usually visible to guests. In that sense, the photos represent an inner desire for cleanliness and order that is not imposed on the homemaker by anyone other than herself.

At the other end of the spectrum, we see what might happen when a moment of absent-mindedness or going to extremes creeps into the normal daily routine - an embroidered voile curtain getting sucked into the vacuum cleaner, or two decorative mugs piled so high with whipped cream that it flows like lava onto the tablecloth, which of course must now be laundered. The latter photo hints at an exaggerated desire to please others.

An image that enters the realm of pure domestic fantasy is the broom miraculously standing in the middle of the room, ready to sweep the floor without the need for human exertion.

In a text about this series, Thelenová writes, "I am interested in investigating and defining household systems and structures, the principles which lead to their creation, and to play with their inherent absurdities."

Born in 1969 in Chomutov, Thelenová lives in a tiny village in the hills above the north Bohemian city of Ústí nad Labem, where she heads the Studio of Digital Animation of the Faculty of Art and Design at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University. She was one of the finalists for the Chalupecký Award in 2003.

Living outside the cultural center of Prague and in a somewhat isolated location, Thelenová often makes art from what is close at hand in her own home or the local landscape. By intensely examining what is most intimate and fundamental in people's lives - family and home - she uncovers universal systems and structures, adding her own subtle or even subversive twist.

Thelenová's project is a conceptual confrontation between unremarkable daily expectations and their fulfillment, a process that repeats in a continuous cycle. The artist explores this phenomenon on a personal scale, though her work has a more general application.

The three videos operate individually and also function as a sort of triptych. To a dreamy soundtrack, each shows a particular action - making a bed, taking laundry out of the washing machine, vacuuming - in a repetitive loop, just like the eternal return of the chores themselves, but the familiar movements become a dance, poetry in motion. Thelenová has elevated housework to the level of contemporary performance art.

In setting up and photographing situations in her own home, Thelenová often used her 16-year-old daughter as a model: She is both the avid duster and the female figure in the videos.

Considering her daughter's age, Thelenová's series includes a facet of homemaking heritage - daughters have traditionally "apprenticed" with their mothers, learning how to perform household chores. It is a convention passed from one generation to the next, determining the way future generations will fold the clothes, iron, dust and vacuum.

Thelenová uses her intimate environment to address universal truths, taking something quotidian and examining what happens when it edges toward the extreme. The show is not meant to be a critical rant, aimed at her partner or at men generally, about women doing a disproportionate share of the housework. Rather, it is a lightly humorous look at the extremes to which love for family and home often take us and the inherent absurdity of the Sisyphean cycle of cleaning.

Mimi Fronczak Rogers can be reached at
Features@praguepost.com