Sisyphiade or Boulder in Time (video)

In 2018, Lubo Kristek opened the Kristek House in Brno in his traditional way – in a happening this time called Sisyphiade or Boulder in Time. The artist created the house-assemblage on a street where he lived during his childhood. What was untraditional about this happening was the use of autobiographic motifs. Kristek was born as a ‘child of war’ in 1943 and one of his earliest memories was of an air-raid alert when his mother ran to take him to the closest bomb shelter. We can also find one of Kristek’s fated personalities in the happening – the actor Ivan Hojar who gave six years old Kristek a suitcase with wigs and macquillage and turned his interest to the world of fantasy. The figure of the prisoner was inspired by Kristek’s father, an architect that was an active member of the anti-fascist resistance movement for which he was then imprisoned by the communist regime. Kristek studied ballet as a boy and these studies were source of his fascination of the ballet world. The figure of the young boy leaves the scene in a series of ballet jumps, while the society is trapped in a net and participates in a ludicrous election (Kristek emigrated to West Germany in 1968). There is no power to move the Sisyphean boulder. The giant moths bring the world of fantasy to the scene. Imagination brings forth pupae from which imagoes hatch after the collapse of the hyper-consumerist dog-eat-dog society in which also time has gone mad. The imagoes carry important symbols for the Kristek House. The solution of the problem with the boulder in time is quite surreal.