SHORT BIO:
Milan Kohout (now a US citizen) is originally from The Czech Republic. Here he got his M.S. in Electrical Engineering. He was an independent artist in so-called "Second Culture". Later he becomes a signatory member and art activist of the dissident human rights organization CHARTER 77 (group of mostly artists was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1985 and initiated non violent Velvet Revolution which toppled totalitarian regime in 1989). Following many interrogations and several imprisonments he was forced by CZ security police to leave his country in 1986 due to his political art activism. After several years in a refugee camp he was granted asylum in the United States. In 1993 Milan received his Diploma from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Since 1994 Milan has been a member of the Mobius Artists Group (www.Mobius.org). Here he has created many full-scale Performance Art pieces (both collaborative and solo) His work concentrates mostly on the subject of human rights of the minorities (recently rights of Roma/ Gypsies) and politics (critique of both totalitarian capitalism and communism and fundamentalist religions). In his work he is also trying to get art back into everyday life. He believes that Performance Art is only latest name for an art form that has been with us ever since we defined ourselves as human beings. As Mobius Artists Group member he has participated on numerous international art exchange programs and festivals around the world (China, Croatia, Taiwan, Czech Rep, Poland, Cuba, USA etc). and has been the recipient of number of awards, grants, residencies (Grant from The Fund for US artists at Intern.Festivals, Tanne Foundation Annual Award, First Prize at Intern.Theater Fest.in Pula, Best National Czech.Independent Film Award, Arizona State University residency,PSi conference in London 2006 etc.) He has been teaching clases of Performance Art & Politics at TUFTS University and Massachusetts College of Art and video at The New England Institute of Art in Boston.

Contact: milan@vzavenue.net
617 439 8643

My other political posters- Part1
My other political posters- Part2

Intrerview about my perfrormances

Talk to students


O N
L I N E
C A T A L O G U E
OF
PERFORMANCES
(1984-NOW):




REPORT ABOUT MY LATEST DURATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART PIECE :

NOV.09.2007 ," NOOSE ON SALE", IN FRONT OF "BANK OF AMERICA"(Opposing the balcony where The Declaration of Independence was red in 1776),BOSTON, USA, "TREMOR" FESTIVAL

FIRST PART OF THE PERFORMANCE: In my Performance Art pieces I have been always reacting to the sociopolitical environment at the moment of the given piece. In the several days preceding my piece, the Dow Jones average had significantly dropped on the NY stock exchange, which could be seen as a symptom of a coming crisis of capitalistic economy. This loss was initiated by the faulty and extremely greedy and criminal American mortgage bank industry. The mortgage lenders were deliberately targeting the low-income people with high-cost loans and then making their money off of the loans being sold over and over again in Wall Street . But those who are going to suffer the worst consequences are those millions of people who are going to lose their homes to foreclosures. Standing in front of the entrance of the main branch of "Bank of America" in Boston, I metaphorically offered a sale on nooses. This sale reflected metaphorically the cynicism of the rich people at the banking market, who were willing to sell everything for the sake of profit, including human life and suicide. This means they were willing to "sell" even a "noose" as a part of a mortgage package and still pretend to be just " innocent businessmen". In their minds was something like this: " We can even make some additional profit and who cares if they commit a suicide after losing a home". As a practical illustration of the contemporary US "police state" it took only 3 minutes for the first policeman to appear on the scene and start to interrogate me. He was followed by another two policeman in a patrol car two minutes later.I explained to them that I was doing a performance art piece and that I was actually offering nooses for free. Than among other I was asked what country I was from and what language I spoke. I replied that I was from The USA and ,as they could hear,I spoke English. I followed by asking them if they were "racially profiling" me. The policeman answered "YES". The nooses and a sign were confiscated as material evidence and I was told I would receive a court summons for breaking a law for not having a peddler's license. Witness of the piece was overheard on his cell phone saying:" You should come down here and see this! There is a guy selling nooses. I think he wants to kill Americans?" The whole performance lasted about six minutes.
Link to Tremor festival

SECOND PART OF THE PERFORMANCE (TWO MONTHS LATER): I received a notice requiring me to attend a hearing related to an application for criminal complaint. It was scheduled on January 16,2008. At that time, I reported to the criminal clerk's office at the courthouse in Boston accompanied by my lawyer Jeffrey J. Pyle. The criminal clerk was to decide whether or not I would be sued for the criminal offense of being a "Transient Vendor, Unlicensed c101:008. " First the criminal clerk listened to a police officer. He stated that upon his arrival "he noticed that I had a cardboard sign which stated, "Nooses on Sale" and also 15 1/2" diameter by approximately 10" length of rope formed in the fashion consistent with a noose". He also stated that he also "observed a large crowd of pedestrians gathering around the suspect (me) attempting to read the sign. My lawyer began to dispute the charges by building the case (proof) that I was not selling anything and that the whole piece was a performance piece as part of an art festival. The police officer was then presented with the detailed photo documentation of the whole piece. It seemed to surprise him. Than my lawyer began to establish proof that I was an artist teaching performance art at different colleges, (part of his legal strategy to dispute the charges brought against me). But the clerk stopped arrogantly my lawyer and refused to dismiss the case and announced that the court hearing for the criminal offense would take place on Feb 6th. When I was leaving the court house I felt like I was having deja vu. It reminded me of the times I was politically persecuted under the totalitarian system in my ex-country, Czechoslovakia from which I was eventually expelled.

THIRD PART OF THE PERFORMANCE: The second court hearing occurred, and I pleaded not guilty. My lawyer Jeffrey J. Pyle asked the district attorney to dismiss this absurd case but he categorically refused. Than my lawyer explained to the judge that I was a famous and internationally recognized performance artist from the former Czechoslovakia, that in fact I had actually been expelled from said country for said activity, and that in this instance I was criticizing the selling of unsafe mortgages and greedy banking industry. My lawyer did an excellent job of explaining my position and my performance, and the judge listened carefully. Then the judge asked for arranging a pretrial conference hearing which will be on Feb 22nd.

FOURTH PART OF THE PERFORMANCE: The third hearing occurred and the motion to dismiss the case was filed. This excellently executed public document ( anybody interested has the right to access this document) was prepared by my lawyer Jeffrey J. Pyle. It contains all the information about the defense of this case. Now it is up to the court to decide about dismissal of the case till the trial which will occur on March 7.

FIFTH PART OF THE PERFORMANCE: Today (MARCH 7, 2008) finally the new judge ( who was not involved in the previous decisions) decided to dismiss the ridiculous, stupid and absurd case which was filled by Commonwealth of Massachusetts against me for "selling nooses" in front of Bank of America. It is obvious that "Commonwealth of Massachusetts" realized that it could not push the charges any more and therefore replaced the prosecutor (District Attorney) who himself asked for the dismissal of the case. The dismissal ended the growing absurdity of being a criminal defendant for several month for just exercising my right to freedom of speech. It is especially ridiculous since instead of prosecuting those greedy criminals from the banks for causing the suffering for millions of people who are loosing their homes the system was trying to punish me for my critical commentary. I wanted to wake up people to the fact that if we continue to support the economic system that causes this kind of suffering for the people we are literally putting a noose around all of our heads. I grew up in a totalitarian system which misused the law to prosecute dissidents for their critical expression. For the government to use bogus charges to punish artists for their expression is a step toward that kind of system. Having performed in many countries around the world (include totalitarian systems like China and Cuba) I have never experienced so restrictive and police monitored environment for the street Performance Art like in the USA (I know everybody is a suspected "terrorist" or "criminal" now ) I would like to thank my lawyer Jeffrey J. Pyle for his excellent work on this case and in the field of the First Amendment cases. Thanks also to many supporters who have been very helpful during this performance (some of them attended even the court hearings). Long lIve freedom of speech- one of the last hopes we have.

SIXTH PART OF THE PERFORMANCE-ENCORE: I am asking Commonwealth of Massachusetts to return my nooses and a sign which was confiscated by the police officers during my performance.

SEVENTH AND LAST PART OF THE PERFORMANCE My wonderful lawyer Jeffrey J. Pyle on 05.17.08 filled the "Motion to Return Physical Evidence to Defendant" and I picked up several days ago my beloved nooses and a sign at the police warehouse. With greeting " Let us fight the big brother"

Here are some links dealing with this performance:
Boston Phoenix
The Phoenix commentary after the charge was dismissed
Boston Herald
Boston Now
NPR
Chris King Blog
Chris King Blog/last hearing
Art in Community Blog
Weekly Dig
Weekly Dig
Mass Rights Blog
Britske Listy
Boston Now:
BAAM, Boston Anarchist Magazine

Police is confiscating nooses and a sign as "the material evidence"

During one of the hearings

... minutes after the dismissal of the case in front of Edward W. Brooke Courthouse in Boston with my lawyer and the supporters who attended the last hearing

commentary relating to this picture

minutes after my nooses were returned to me

AUG,2007, GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE, SAN FRANCISKO,USA

I understand that this bridge is a "gate" or an "entrance" to the USA. I used the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights accepted by the United Nations in 1948. It sets forth the basic human rights standards which we are starting to ignore in our "fight against terrorism". So I tore this text into pieces and let it be taken by the wind through this "gate".

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisko

JUNE 2007, KROMERIZ, CZECH REPUBLIC, CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL, FORFEST FESTIVAL, MEAT

Since Forfest festival was mostly a music festival I developed a "music composition" ... I was working with the following ideas: 1/ -the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church in supporting the war in Iraq and its own teaching of peace (especially in the cradle of contemporary Catholicism Poland which, after Great Britain, sent the largest number of soldiers to Iraq as a part of "The Coalition of the Willing"). 2/- from my collection of reports from the Iraq war, I was most moved by the recollections of eye witnesses about the chunks of human flesh falling from heaven after bomb explosions. They especially remembered the horrible and indescribable sound of the those pieces of meat hitting the ground. So I wanted to reproduce this sound in the local Catholic cathedral in Kromeriz - Christianity is obsessed with human flesh: the image of Christ on the cross, nails in the palms, open rib cage etc. But within the building of the church, everything is sanitized by its representation as art objects made from wood and stone. So I bought a large piece of raw meat, and for about half an hour I was throwing it up into the air in the middle of the cathedral and letting it fall on the stone floor. After the sound of each impact of flesh, and the subsequent echo, a colleague Lewis threw the coin which filled the church nave with a tinkling sound. From time to time occasional visitors were screaming at me about defiling the church, but than they always left. At the end a nun came and after the initial shock she started scream at me: "Evil! Leave the home of Jesus Christ!" So I left and returned with a bucket and a mop and cleaned the church floor. Meanwhile the nun was still screaming at me and I was replying: "Do not worry, your church will be even cleaner than before". The local bishop is considering to consecrate the church after my performance
Forfest Festival

MAY 2007, PLZEN, CZECH REPUBLIC; ANYMOUS FESTIVAL; THANK YOU IRAQ -- WE WILL NEVER FORGET

I was encouraging people to sign a petition for the erection of a monument reading "Thank you Iraq, we will never forget your support for our perfect western civilization." The performance took place in front of a recently built monument commemorating the liberation of Plzen by the American army in 1945. On it is written "Thank you America, we will never forget" (in Communist times, what was written on the statues was: "Thank you Soviet Union, we will never forget." The ass-kissing rhetoric stays, the empires have changed). There is also a relationship to the double standard of the so-called "liberation" of Iraq leading to the incredible massacres of Iraqis. I used three gold-painted gas canisters situated in the form of a cross and relating to Christianity, Judaism and the Spirit of Gas. After the part of the performance that took place in the street, I placed one canister on the altar in the local synagogue and the second one on the altar of the local catholic cathedral and left them there. The third one I plan to deliver to the only mosque in the Czech Republic in the city of Brno. Surprisingly, nobody called the anti-bomb squad to clear these canisters from their locations. I then personally delivered the petition to the mayor of the City of Plzen.

Altar with the golden painted gas canister in the catholic cathedral in Plzen

and another canister in the local synagogue

2007, MOBIUS ARTRAGES, BOSTON, USA, ASSKISSING SERVICE

I kissed asses of about fifty eligible people during this performance.

MAY, 2006, BOSTON CITY PLAZA,MOBIUS PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL, BOSTON ,USA, "CLEANING THE SKY" ,IN COLLABORATION WITH MILAN KLIC

Since pollution generated by our selfish consumer society is damaging to the atmosphere there is a need to start somewhere with cleaning effort. The tools: Broom on the long stick, garbage bag on the long stick and containers for the waste. Duration: 1PM till 6PM

NOVEMBER 2006, KESHER 3, NEW YORK
Nationalism and yellow ribbons became our nooses.
KESHER 3

SEPTEMBER, 2005 , CHENGDU, CHINA, OPEN PERFORMANCE ART FESTIVAL


This performance I made in collaboration with my colleague Mari Novotny Jones. The people were encouraged to choose one of their most favorite values from classical Chinese society -like: social justice, equality, friendship, collaboration, solidarity, collectivism etc.- and, with each word (character) written on a piece of paper, they were asked to wrap it over a stone and try to shoot it into the garbage can with it, from a distance- like a basketball game. When they succeeded, they were asked to pick up one of the nicely looking envelopes as a reward, to open up at home. These envelopes contained some of the values which could come into Chinese society with a growing capitalistic market society -like: individualism, loneliness, isolation, ignorance, waste, arrogance...... ..OPEN PERFORMANCE ART FESTIVAL

Dumping traditional values

NOVEMBER, 2004, CHARLESTOWN WORKING THEATER, BOSTON, USA, PERFORMANCE IN COLLABORATION WITH MARI NOVOTNY JONES
DESCENT, DISSENT


We are in a place of despair concerning the state of the world. The growing concerns about possibility of never ending wars in order to"export our values" leaves us wondering if the current method of dealing with everything in a kind of simplistic binary system - Terrorists/Victims, Moslem/Judeo-Christian, Evil/Good, War/Peace - is the only way that we can ever think about problems. This characterizing lacks imagination and thwarts measures to negotiate beyond the expectations of aggression. We believe there is a need to examine America's (current company in power) position in the global community. Certainly, there would seem to be an affirmation to the complexity of the world view in this period of the new millennium. During these times, we feel as though we are posturing and bullying, staking our claims to the full rights we see extended to us by our victim status. That brings us to our piece. How do we awaken from this recurring nightmare? Can the world be sleepwalking into an endgame, a descent into a hellmouth reminiscent of a Court Masque? Protest is underreported. Where are the voices of dissent? It seems like nothing matter any more. It looks like we are entering a time where selfishness is elevated to the status of sainthood. Our work embraces the themes of collapse, of falling, of capitulation. But we want to know whose collapse, falling and capitulation? We are working elements of text and image and sound. We are finding ways to unify these elements around consistent materials and the use of theme and variation: the culmination ending in a final note that is more of a surrender than an affirmation of what could be.

SEPTEMBER, 2004, KROMERIZ, CZECH REPUBLIC, FORFEST FESTIVAL "BLACK AND WHITE", Public Performance


I decided to do a performance piece which would focus public attention on the abuse of the human rights of the Czech Roma minority. During our visit to the festival, the whole country lived for the European Soccer Cup and the general population was watching their ?white only? Czech soccer players in hopes of lifting up their Czech white national pride. After I made initial contacts with the representatives of the local Roma community, I built a maquette of a soccer goal on the main city square. I used a flat surface which I then slowly painted with white paint. Then, while wearing completely white clothes and playing goalie defending the goal, I asked the Roma children to shoot a goal. They were using a black ball and before the offense always dipped it in a container of black paint. As the performance progressed my white clothes and the surface of the goal slowly became more and more covered with black spots being painted by the ball's impacts on the white surface. I just could not defend "my all white goal." After about an hour's duration of the performance, I was hit directly in the face. I then finished the piece since I had to go to the emergency room of the local hospital, where -- since I had almost lost my sight -- they had to wash the black paint from my eyes. The next day I invited all the participating Roma to a cafe on the main square, and a young waitress refused to serve us citing the reason that she "does not serve Gypsies." Then I immediately took all my Roma friends to the local state police station where, after initial refusal by the on-duty policeman, I forced him to make a report about a racist criminal act, which is a recently passed law in Czech legislation. The case will be heard soon by the local city council.

AUGUST, 2003, GDANSK- SHIPYARD AND LAUNCHING PLACE OF THE SOLIDARNOCZ (Solidarity) MOVEMENT, POLAND, Castle of the Imagination Performance Art Festival. "THE WORD OF GOD"


I worked with the moral schism of the Polish Catholic Church. Being the most powerful force behind the government, it is mixing its pacifistic teachings with political support for the war in Iraq and pro-war politicians. The Solidarnosc movement, which toppled the communist government, was also strongly associated with the Catholic Church. The former communist government was famous in Iraq under Saddam Hussein for building poultry factories there. So I was reading from the Polish version of the Bible, trying to convert a henhouse full of hens to Christianity while they were trapped in a cage. From time to time I poured gas from a canister onto the Bible. In the audio you could hear a mixture of the original soundtrack from Solidarnosc revolution, Islamic praying and American commercial songs.

MAY, 2002, BOSTON HARBOR INTERNATIONAL ART EXCHANGE PROGRAM BETWEEN MOBIUS AND ARTISTS FROM ZADAR (CROATIA) OUTDOOR PERFORMANCE "FEED ME (FIRST AMENDMENT)"


A long (endless) strip of American flags ran from bridge railings directly to my mouth. While my mouth was stuffed to the maximum by the other end of this colorful fabric, I gave a lecture about freedom of speech and its irreplaceable importance in the healthy life of a democratic society under any circumstances. I used a powerful speaker and a hidden wireless microphone, but my voice was distorted by the stuffing to the degree that walkers passing on the bridge could hear just my murmuring. As an accompanying audio track I used an endless repetition of a sampled announcement of Coordinated Universal Time - a reminder that nothing lasts forever.

AUGUST , 2001, ZADAR-CROATIA, INTERNATIONAL ART EXCHANGE PROGRAM BETWEEN MOBIUS AND ARTISTS FROM ZADAR, STREET PERFORMANCE


"THE STRANGERS ARE APPROACHING THE CITY, CLOSE THE GATES" This performance was devoted to the local Roma (Gypsies), who had to escape, fearing for their lives, from Zadar (Croatia) when the war between Croats and Serbs started in 1991. According to my investigation of former Roma settlements in Zadar, to this day, six years after the final operation of this war (which the Croatian military labelled "Storm" in 1995), none of the Roma who left has returned. Operation Storm was led by the Zadarian general Gotovina and resulted in many cases of ethnic cleaning of "non-Croatians". One of the significant monuments of Zadar, recognized by the locals, is a sculpture of an angel standing on the very top of the tower in the center of the city. It is turning in the direction of the wind. I picked a nearby tower as the destination of my performance. The city of Zadar was surrounded in medieval times by tall walls and this tower served as a post for an observer, who by screaming alerted the town when strangers (for example Roma) approached the city. When strangers approached, the city gate would be closed and they would not be allowed to enter I stood on the top of this tower for an hour and mimicking the angel sculpture. I screamed repeatedly in Croatian: THE STRANGERS ARE APPROACHING THE CITY, CLOSE THE GATES! I used a wireless microphone attached to my body and amplified by a powerful speaker system placed on top of the tower. The sound was heard within a significant part of the city and people on the streets stopped and stared at me. During the performance a medical emergency car approached the tower followed by a police car. But no arrest was made.

AUGUST , 2001, ZADAR -CROATIA, INTERNATIONAL ART EXCHANGE PROGRAM BETWEEN MOBIUS AND ARTISTS FROM ZADAR, A STREET INSTALLATION : "AFTER GOTOVINA"


When I arrived in Zadar, prosecutors for the Hague tribunal announced the indictment of Croatian General Ante Gotovina for atrocities committed during army operation "Storm" in 1995. The Croatian army led by this general expelled thousands of Serb, Muslim and Roma (Gypsy) civilians from so-called "Croatian territories". Many of these civilians who refused expulsion were killed. Gotovina, a native of Zadar, proclaiming innocence, refused to surrender to the tribunal and went into hiding. In Zadar, the Gotovina case stirred passions and locals placed a billboard with a picture of the General proclaiming him a hero, not a criminal. The case also brought to life the legacy of past fascism supported by some Croatians. Croatia was a fascist ally with Hitler's Germany during the Second World War and Zadar was at that time a part of fascistic Italy. Gotovina serves for some as an archetype, like Mussolini or Hitler. One of the signs of these ghost feelings are swastikas, anti-Semitic, anti-Gypsy and anti-Muslim statements on the city walls. I made an exact copy of the Gotovina billboard and painted the surface plain white, symbolizing his self-proclaimed innocence. Then I painted a little black square (black is the color of fascism) exactly at the place where there would be a mustache on the face of the General on the other billboard. I placed my billboard symmetrically opposite the Gotovina billboard, which was situated next to one of the main entrance gates to the old city. It survived there two days until I was interviewed by both regional newspaper and television and explained my idea of superimposing Hitler's mustache. Within a couple of hours after the newspapers were published, local people apparently attacked my billboard and destroyed it. I was also advised to be aware of a possible attack against me if I went out in public. The piece ignited a passionate discussion among local people and in the regional media. In a subsequent interview I proclaimed and reserved the constitutional right for freedom of speech, which is provided by the Croatian constitution, and demanded that respect for expression, even opposing opinions, should be developed in society.

......The entrance to the old city in Zadar with mine and Gotovina's bilboards

JULY 2000, PULA, CROATIA; THE 6TH INTERNATIONAL THEATER FESTIVAL AT PULA (P.U.F.) PUBLIC PERFORMANCE. BLACK AND WHITE This performance piece was a part of the 6th International Theater Festival at Pula (P.U.F.) and was awarded the main prize.


In continuing my involvement in working with Roma (Gypsies) I created a performance piece that would defend their human rights. I lived together with the local Roma for about ten days before the performance in order to win their trust and prepare them for the piece. In Croatia, Roma are considered second-class citizens, and in many cases they are declined Croatian citizenship even if they were born in that country. The Croatian schools teach only the history of white Croatians, disregarding historical participation of other minorities, especially Roma. If Roma children are allowed to attend the school they are subject to a strong assimilation process that has little regard for their cultural specificity. For the performance, I selected one of the main squares in Pula where there was an elementary public school on one side and a local Roma office on the other. I painted the windows of the public school with white washable paint from the outside and black from the inside. Then I placed two 30-gallon glass containers in front of the public school. One contained black permanent paint and the other white permanent paint. Both were attached by ropes going through pulleys hanging on a steel cable that was secured high above the square. Then I made seven long wooden sticks painted white. The performance consisted of three parts. In the first part we attempted to communicate between white Croatians and Roma. Pairs of participants formed by one Roma and one white Croatian played a dominant-position game with an eight-foot stick connecting their mouths. A stick entering each participant's mouth distorts the articulation of language and there is always one person lying horizontally on the ground with the other standing (vertical dominant position). In this way the sticks make a 45-degree angle. When the situation is reversed the geometry of dominance still persists. Communication is always based on the principle of dominance and therefore, the tension between representatives of the two groups grow. The second part represents the conflict I modeled between the two groups, one of white Croatians and the other of Roma. Each of them holds a rope leading to a glass container of their specific color, black or white. With growing tensions of miscommunication, both groups start slowly to step apart from each other. As a result, the huge glass containers with black and white paint are elevated above the square and the accumulated energy of those objects begins to build. When the glass containers can rise no higher, the tired groups simultaneously release the ropes and both containers fall quickly down and violently crash to the ground. The explosion represents the conflict of two groups. Releasing the permanent paint from the containers creates a web of black and white streams of paint going all around the square. The permanent Action-Painting is created as a public display to commemorate ethnic conflict. In the third part I encouraged the two groups to reconcile. The Roma dancers in their traditional costumes start to dance around the paint spill and white Croatians slowly joined them. Later, members of the audience join the dance and the whole performance becomes a public celebration. I began to wash the white paint from the windows of the elementary school to reveal the black paint underneath. In European culture, dirt is represented by black and the clean surface of an object is represented by white. In this performance, I wanted to reveal the reversed meaning of color symbolism. .....Article about this performance

Glass containers with black and white paint before they were pulled by two groups of white Croatians and Roma

MARCH 30, 2000 FROM 4PM TO 6PM BOSTON, MA, INTERNATIONAL ART EXCHANGE PROGRAM BETWEEN MOBIUS AND ARTISTS FROM PULA, PUBLIC PERFORMANCE IN TRAIN STATION "YOU DO NOT NEED TO KEEP ME IN THE CAGE ANYMORE"


I stood in a cage in the main hall of the largest Boston railway station ? South Station - during rush-hour. The station was extremely busy with many businesspeople on their way home from their downtown offices. As they passed around my cage I addressed them. Using a wireless microphone my voice was amplified by a speaker system. I talked to them in a serious, neutral voice, explaining why I was inside a cage. I stressed my position to be very painful but fully deserved. I explained to them: "Once there was a reason to keep me inside of the cage all the time because I was an unreasonable critic of the capitalist system." I told them: "That time is over, and now I want to win your trust because I have accepted the capitalist market system and recognize that system to be the best one in the history of humankind." I repeatedly asked for their forgiveness for my past stupidity. I asked them to let me be as free, truthful and honest as they were.
Cage-video

NOVEMBER.17.1999, USTI NAD LABEM, CZECH REPUBLIC, PUBLIC PERFORMANCE AS A CULMINATION OF PROTEST ACTIONS AGAINST XENOPHOBIA AND RACISM. IT TOOK PLACE NEXT TO A WALL WHICH WAS BUILT TO SEPARATE ROMA AND WHITE CZECH COMMUNITY ....."IF YOU BUILD A WALL YOU HAVE TO DIVIDE YOUR FLAG"


Supported by a grant from the branch of the Cultural Ministry in my birthplace Pilsen, I addressed the issues of xenophobia and racism in my homeland through performance art. I was fulfilling a proposal for a traveling program to the small towns of the region to address these issues. I wanted to investigate the reasons and roots of xenophobic feelings that even I personally brought with me to the United States a decade earlier. I searched, with the help of the audience, to find out why I immigrated to the US with that "package on my back." Organizing several performances in small towns, I arranged "meetings" with the predominantly white-Czech audience seated in a circle around me. I addressed these issues first by emphasizing how a lack of contact and experiences with another group can lead to racism. The overwhelming response from the audience was that they were not racists and that these issues were not a problem. I demonstrated my point using the unfamiliar form of performance art to bring the audience face-to-face with various cultural differences. I drew parallels between the discomfort the audience felt with the unfamiliar art form and their lack of experience with the Romani-Czechs. In one performance, I exemplified the misunderstanding of cultural differences by considering varying conceptions of time, which I had experienced upon immigrating to the United States and also when helping to resettle refugees from all over the world once they were in the US. The Romani-Czechs, for example, conduct their lives with a different sense of time than the white-Czechs, which can lead to a ripple effect of misunderstandings that grow and change, resulting in larger problems. One of the planned performances took place next to an infamous outdoor wall, which was raised October 13, 1999 in Usti nad Labem, and intended to separate the Romani-Czech community from the white-Czech community in that town. On November 17, the 10th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution which ?supposedly? established a democratic society as the Czech Republic, the nation was focused on the celebration of this anniversary. The media awaited a counter-action to the commemoration, for which I was prepared. Helped by my friend Vladimir Libal, we painted a Czech flag on a large piece of plywood. Placing it next to the wall, I sawed the flag in half. We then placed one piece on each side of the wall to symbolize the divisions in Czech society, as represented by the wall. That evening, all the Czech TV stations and some world media outlets (including the BBC and CNN), reported news of the perfromance. On the next day, the event received front-page coverage in the main daily newspapers throughout the country. Because of the media response, this performance became the last "hit" in the culmination of protests concerning this issue, which forced the embarrassed city officials to raze the wall several days later. I believe the atmosphere that surrounded me on that day to be similar to the mind-set at the beginning of the civil rights movement in the U.S.

City officials are removing the wall which was built between white Czechs and Roma neighborhood

2000 BOSTON / INTERNATIONAL ART EXCHANGE PROGRAM BETWEEN MOBIUS AND ARTISTS FROM SKOPJE, MACEDONIA , ILLUSION OF FREEDOM


I walk on the street while beating a big noisy drum. Pretending my thoughts are independent, I accompany the drum beating with shouts of slogans elevating freedom and democracy in the United States. At the same time, my head is connected by leashes from four different cardinal points. The leashes are held by four people who, by pulling the ropes, effectively control all my movement on the street. The whole performance is accompanied by an audio mix of howling wolves and ?The Star Spangled Banner? played at variable speeds.

1999 PULA -TRG FORUM, CROATIA, INTERNATIONAL ART EXCHANGE PROGRAM BETWEEN MOBIUS AND ARTISTS FROM PULA, PUBLIC PERFORMANCE IN TRG FORUM I DO NOT WANT TO BE LEASHED


This performance addressed the xenophobia present among the predominately white Croatian population, by recently uncovered evidence that many war crimes during a recent war in Croatia (1991-95) were actually committed by civilians. The civilians expelled many Croatian citizens of different ethnic minorities from their homes, and if they resisted, they were killed. I asked four casual bystanders on Trg Forum in Pula, a symbolic gathering place of local citizens, to step on milk crates organized in a circle, and hold dog leashes, which I provided to them. Then I placed three paper balls containing big pieces of blue, white and red fabric in the center of the circle. The colors referred to the Croatian flag. Then I completely covered myself by black fabric and entered the circle. As the performance progressed I approached each of the three paper balls, removing the different colors of fabric and wearing them over my initial black wrap. After each approach of the paper ball I hooked myself to each the bystanders on the crates so that I became leashed like a dog step by step from four different sides - complete manipulation. Before each "attachment" I asked the bystander to teach me about the typical song, food, smell and color of Croatian culture, referring to the four human senses which we all share. After a while walking in the circle on the leashes, I become tangled with the leashes so that it made me absolutely immobile: the cultural hegemony had prevailed. Then I rebelled and threw off my body red, blue, and white fabric. I untangled myself from the leashes and connected them so that the four bystanders were leashed to each other. Then I escaped from the circle wearing only black again.

1999,2000,MOBIUS, BOSTON PERFORMANCE IN THE MOBIUS GALLERY AND ELSEWHERE. HORIZONTAL OR VERTICAL / FLYING & FLOWING


I created this piece in collaboration with David Franklin, another member of the Mobius Artists Group. I transferred my experience living in both collectivist and individualistic societies into this piece. The collective, Socialist society of Czechoslovakia, where I was born and lived for the first thirty years of my life, was based on a horizontal system of communication and socializing between members of the society. Since government controlled all the media, people themselves ensured the flow of true information by "mouth and hand" channels. The information was spread horizontally among people, not via the media that were placed "above " them. One physical copy of an underground, illegal publication was read using this system by hundreds and hundreds of people. This system was very effective because the life-long, permanent members of the society were also close neighbors who knew each other well. I entered the United States after obtaining political asylum for my political activities against the Czechoslovakian Socialist government. I found American society to be made up of atomized individuals communicating via different forms of media. Communication is not carried from "mouth to hand" but through remote media channels. One issue of a particular publication targets just one niche of the society. Communication is oriented vertically by a system made up of individual information droplets. In this performance I wanted to transform these differences into geometrical forms that would accompany different actions, texts and stories. All components (sound, texts, stories, lighting, movements) of the parts of the piece were based either on vertical or horizontal composition and the tensions between them. In one of the pieces David and I attempt to communicate with each other. Together, we play a dominant-position game with an eight-foot stick connecting our mouths. A stick entering each participant's mouth distorts the articulation of language. In this performance, there is always one person lying horizontally on the ground and the other standing in a dominant position. In this way the stick makes a 45-degree angle. When the situation is reversed the geometry of dominance still persists. Communication between the participants is always based on the principle of dominance. In the other piece I work with vertically- and horizontally-situated elastic bungee cords. The horizontal cord represents mutual social bondage (cooperation, collectivism) and the vertical one atomization of the individual (competition, individualism) The Z-axis in this 3-dimensional plot reflects the social force generated by the intersection of the horizontal and vertical coordinates. I tell a story of homeless people and a private doctor offering a free one time medical service. I present my face at each moment of the story in a particular position in this three-dimensional matrix represented by bungee cords I want to create a concept of real life where extremes of any sort can produce tension and pain.

1999 PULA , Croatia ,INTERNATIONAL ART EXCHANGE PROGRAM, COLE MINE-LAMPARNA, WORKING CLASS DREAM


I performed in the outdoor "entrance hall" of a gigantic elevator which, when operating, would take the miners down into the coal mine. The space was evocative and brought to mind the last moments before the miners were (as has always happened symbolically in history) carried down by the elevator cage. This may have been the moment when they stood for awhile and thought about their lives, hopes and dreams. I divided the hall using bungee cords, arranging them in a cross parallel to the floor. I then placed my blindfolded head into the space and performed the piece in six sequences. First I pushed the elastic cord up as much as possible referring to a desire of the workers to get help from spirituality. In the second, third, fourth,and fifth parts, I tested the maximum elasticity of the cords in four different cardinal points. And finally, using my head, swung the whole system of crossed cords down to the ground, referring to the repeating patterns of history.

1995,96,97,98, MOBIUS, BOSTON; INDOOR MULTIMEDIA PERFORMANCE IN MOBIUS GALLERY BERLIN WALL-1, -2, -3, -4


Each of these one-season events was a different full-scale performance. They were equal collaborations with Mari-Novotny Jones, another Mobius Artists Group member. The performances were reacting to the newly established world power system where market-oriented, so-called individualistically based societies gripped the victory of "Cold War" over so-called collectivist societies. This performance project lasted for four years, and presented journeys through the idea of collectivism and individualism "as a social order", leaving the audience to decide about future models of society. They examined the extreme polarities that divide people of different philosophical backgrounds, encouraged the creation of a society of thinkers, and questioned how a society does or does not answer the needs of its people. Challenging history, the present and even the future, we wanted to present a number of stereotypical notions and categories governing the world before and after the fall of "collectivist" societies. Using performance as a vehicle, we wanted to prevent a situation in which communication between divided cultures is too often one of mutual monologue disguised as dialog, and where the notion of dialog is sometimes a farce. Martina Pachmanova wrote about the last Berlin Wall performance in ArtsMedia magazine: "When socialism collapsed in the East, most of the people in the post-totalitarian countries expected the overnight arrival of a capitalism which would transform their devastated lives into a kingdom of riches and spectacular consumerism. Even though some historians on both of the former iron curtain consider this historical break as evidence of the validity of the capitalistic system, the collapse of socialism coincided with a protracted global crisis of capitalism in the West. In this sense, the Oedipal figure in Milan Kohout and Novotny-Jones? performance should be interpreted, rather, as an eternal nomadic traveler, disenchanted by his fatal mistake of falling repeatedly in (Incestuous) love with one or other enslaving ideology. He is, thus, forced to wander endlessly between Good and Evil, Left and Right, East and West, in the realm where one's capacity to distingish between polarities leads either to extremism or to a cynical blurring of all values."

1998 BOSTON HARBOR IN FORT POINT, INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE PROGRAM WITH TAINAN, TAIWAN, PHASE TWO: THE ESSENCE OF PLACE, BIRD


The Essence of Place was an international exchange of artists and urban designers who investigated, through a creative and exploratory dialogue, the city as the basic element of a nation's structure. It spoke to the common urban essence peculiar to Tainan and Boston through a lens that looked from the past through the present and to the future of both places. I worked with the concept that all surfaces (i.e., all property), excluding water surfaces, are strictly privately owned at the Fort Point waterfront. This locale forms a most unnatural theatrical set which is absolutely restrictive by its principle and does not leave any space for the outside unenfranchised participant I used the metaphor of a bird that is forbidden to land on any of those privately owned surfaces, and is forced to land on the only public surface, the water. I built a raft with a huge stylized bird's beak and launched it into the waterway next to an old bridge where the audience was standing. Accompanied by an audio sound track comprised of an edited variety of sounds produced by everyday human activities, I screamed repeatedly, encouraging all the birds to land on public surfaces. After about five minutes I was approached by a Boston Harbor Police vessel, who announced their intention to arrest me for this not-permitted activity. After I argued with them about how the water surface comprises public space, they consulted with their superiors over the phone. After a while they told me that though my argument was perfectly accurate, they would have to arrest me anyway because my "boat" did not have a navigational instrument, such as a compass, wireless transmitter, etc. At that moment the audience members standing on the bridge started to support my case by chanting and clapping hands. The police officers, who until then were not aware of anybody witnessing the performance, again contacted their superiors. After a few moments of discussion, the vessel withdrew, letting me continue. The unplanned circumstances of this performance created a balance between the power of private ownership and the interests of general public.

1996, TOBACCO FIELD ABOUT 50 MILES FROM HAVANA, CUBA





In March 1996 I "illegally" traveled to Cuba. During this "social reality study" trip I made a performance in the middle of the tobacco field (seen on the picture). At this location I wrote spontaneously a poem reacting to the cuban "social reality" and buried it in the field. I expected that after some time it would be decomposed and the spirit of the poem (in molecules) would enter the underground water and would be eventually drunk by the locals. Following this trip on January 1997 I got a harassing letter from the US Department of the Treasury in Washington, threatening me with a jail term up to 10 years and penalty up to 250 thousand dollars for traveling to Cuba without a permit from the US government. I never responded to their totalitarian letter, and I have been expecting to be arrested or fined ever since.

A LETTER FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

1995, BOSTON, USA , COLLABORATIVE OUTDOOR PERFORMANCE WITH MARI-NOVOTNY JONES, ABANDONED LION CAGE, FRANKLIN PARK. ZOO: A DIALOG BETWEEN INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM FRAMED BY A CAGE


We were seated across from one another at opposite sides of a table inside of a huge abandoned zoo cage. It was sharply divided by two different colors, the same way we were dressed. We endlessly passed "meals" to each other that were designed by the principle of opposing life philosophies (sharply different colors). The "meal" would be soberly brushed aside by the each recipient. By this mutual refusal to taste the opposite meal, the circle of refusals was repeated for several hours. This cycle kept us from developing the mutual understanding that would lead to the prevention of otherwise inevitable violent conflict.

1992, BOSTON, USA , STREET PERFORMANCE. COMMON HOUSE


In this performance I investigated the physical effect of strictly defined ownership of private property in the USA and its manifestation within the visual appearance of the city's buildings. I chose one of the numerous examples of artificially imposed discontinuity in a building's appearance, which resulted from the actions of two different owners of each half of one architecturally unique house. The left side of this house was clearly painted differently from the right one. I stood in front of the house, interviewing causal walkers on the street. I asked them if they could observe the house for a while and tell me what was wrong with it. Most adults who were born in the USA did not notice the illogical appearance of the whole house, but instead described the appealing beauty of it. But most children who were asked did notice (I hope instinctively) the discontinuity and answered: "it is painted half black and half white."

1987, REFUGEE CAMP, TRAISKIRCHEN, AUSTRIA, "TRACING OWN SHADOWS" PERFORMANCE ,8 mm FILM STILL TAKEN FROM THE ROOF OF THE REFUGEE CAMP BUILDING








I went into the large snow covered field behind the refugee camp building (where I spent two years) and using a stick I traced all the shadows that were casted that day.

1985, PRAGUE, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, STREET PERFORMANCE

A few days before my expulsion from Czechoslovakia by the totalitarian government, I stopped in the middle of the street , removed my national ID card from a pocket and threw it behind me. Some bystander was screaming at me but I than continued walking without looking back.

1984, PLZEN, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, PERFORMANCE RECORDED ON SUPER 8MM FILM, 18.MINUTES, CAMERA JIRI DVORSKY, PODMOSTNI FILOSOFICKA JATKA (THE PHILOSOPHICAL SLAUGHTERHOUSE UNDER THE BRIDGE)


The performance, accompanied by a long poem, dealt with religious questions and a search for the sense of the life of people in totalitarian Czechoslovakia. At that time, only materialistic philosophies were proliferated by the government. The blinded and uniformly clothed performer investigated abandoned places (like dirty corners under the railroad bridge, scrap-yard depository sewers in the largest industrialized city in the country) while the film cutaways represented his inner life. Because of its subject, the film won no prizes and barely escaped confiscation by the police. It went into underground culture, however, was copied to video, and was distributed by Vokno, the samizdat video magazine. ....See film "Podmostni Filosoficka Jatka-Part 1 ....See film "Podmostni Filosoficka Jatka" -Part 2

1983, PLZEN, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, PERFORMANCE RECORDED ON SUPER 8MM (SOUND) FILM, LOCATED IN A LARGE FIELD OUTSIDE THE CITY, CAMERA JIRI DVORSKY, (NATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL (NOVE ZAMKY-1985) FIRST PRIZE) SVATEBNI DAR (A WEDDING PRESENT)


The performance in this film is a meditation on how the Czechs concern for their children was often manipulated by the totalitarian government. It is about two principles. The first is the keen contrast between the strong and colorful rhetoric of the voice on the soundtrack and the great simplicity of the black & white horizontal composition. The voice exhorts us toward the great achievements we dream of in our youth, while the composition is limited to a family together in a barren field (the man is washing diapers). The second principle is repetition. After the young man rebels against the constraints of family life (which requires obeying the rules of totalitarian society), the same words and images repeat from the beginning of the film. Just as the audience is becoming uncomfortable, the repetition is broken at the point where the young man is sitting in the chair reading totalitarian government newspapers. His outline recedes into the distance (he is becoming smaller and smaller), while the voice questions, "Why don't you go on?" The structure, proportion, and realization of the film correspond here correctly with the subject of the film, an allegory about youthful enthusiasm, rebellion against the status quo, and forced resignation. .......See Film "Svatebni Dar"

1982, THE PIG MATERNITY UNIT, PIG FARM IN THE SMALL VILLAGE NEXT TO PLZEN , CZECHOSLOVAKIA, THE "BE A PIG" PERFORMANCE.



The photographic documentation of this performance piece was confiscated by the totalitarian government security forces, and probably destroyed. I was interrogated and sent away for a psychiatric evaluation. The drawing was made later as the reconstruction of the performance.


Being a part of the Czech underground artistic movement "Second Culture", I decided to leave the human society and live with the pigs. I considered them more acceptable than the people from the society I lived in. I went to the huge pig farm nursery, took of all my cloth, lied down in the pig shit next to the friendly mother pig, join feeding with her other piglet babies.