Shifted Realities

Mar. 16, 2023 - Jun. 11, 2023
Galerie Rudolfinum, Alšovo nábřeží 12, Old Town, Prague, 110 00 Curator: Eva Drexlerová, Jen Kratochvil, Petr NedomaText by: Marwa Arsanios, Ed Atkins, Adéla Babanová, Zach Blas, Paul Maheke, Leslie Thornton

What is reality? And is there only one reality? Or are we offered the possibility to move between different versions and variations of what we otherwise take for granted and describe as reality? In recent years, both global and local politics have often made mention of divided societies, with the assumption that one side refuses to listen to the other, and vice versa. Is it possible that each of the parties lives in a different reality? What about the growing digital world? Can we consider this as real? Or do we reserve that privilege for describing the physical space around us, which we can look at with our own eyes and touch directly, without the help of displays, controllers or virtual reality gloves?

With the democratization of the possibilities of personal statement through the tools of the Internet and social networking, our previously more or less compact reality has begun to shift and become layered. Everyone has the right and space to express their own opinion within the infinite digital world, and thus the role of co-creators of the world, which previously belonged to religious leaders, politicians and philosophers, is now available to everyone.

The exhibition Shifted Realities poses the questions above and supplements them with countless others, offering visitors of Galerie Rudolfinum a range of possible instructions and hints concerning perception of how subdivided and scattered our own realities can be. In a series of works by internationally renowned artists, the gallery presents selected approaches to thinking about the current world and its direction through images, space and movement.