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Roman Ondak – Some Thing

The Common Guild, Glasgow, October 12th-December 14th

If things go in cycles, Slovakian artist Roman Ondak isn't shy about encouraging and manipulating such dizzying turns of events. Where previously he has had museum-goers mark their height on the gallery walls and broken down national barriers at the Venice Biennale by having grow through the Slovak pavilion, for his first show in Scotland thinks look a lot more personal.

Ondak will present a series of still lifes he painted when a teenager, placing them beside the original object the work was taken from. While on one level this smacks of middle-aged show and tell, there are, according to Common Guild curator Kitty Anderson, more discreetly political and philosophical intentions behind the display.

“I like the idea of exposing parts of the past which are not normally seen,” she says, “but there's also this idea about loops and cycles that keep on filtering into Ondak's work, endlessly returning to the same place.”

To coincide with 'Some Thing', Ondak will present 'This Way, Please,' a performance piece first seen in 1999 and which will be seen at GOMA.

“There's something basically very human about Ondak's work,” Anderson says. “There's a curiosity there about human behaviour.”

The List, October 2013


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