"Kraj Majales" refers to the honorary title given to Allen Ginberg on a visit to Prague in 1965. This term serves as title for a stop-motion animation and sculptural installation inspired by a period in which I squatted in the former apartment of Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky. My tentative relationship to the living space, due to my anticipated eviction and the experience of being in close quarters with the artifacts of such public figures, invests the work with a nomadic character--sculptural investigations ready to be scuttled, wire arrangements in suspension. The exhibition’s works are renderings of domestic life through the cracked lenses of misappropriated fame, household objects invested with aura because of some arbitrary textual accreditation or appearance in a well-known photograph. This record of domestic life plugs in to a larger, mythic narrative, which is amplified by research into the lives of Ginsberg and his circle.

The installation also follows my interest in the languages of magical practice, by way of Harry Smith, another long-term resident of the space, and Ginsberg’s other notable peers, such as William Burrough’s and Brian Gysin. Several of the sculptures in Kral Majales are reactions to Smith’s installations and paintings that were created in the apartment, as well as Burroughs and Gysin’s Paris investigations into scrying (or mirror gazing), textual “cut-ups”, and image projections onto bodies.

--Brian Zegeer

Kral Majales opens on Friday, March 13 at Vaudeville Park, with a reception from 7 -10 PM and will have a closing reception in conjunction with a music event curated by Baby Copperhead on Sunday, March 22nd, 7-10pm. Vaudeville Park is open by appointment throughout the week.