The Highway Poems open-air 15. 4. 2021 – 25. 6. 2021
Curator: Tereza Nováková
The Highway Poems exhibition is a part of a larger collection of slogans gathered by Jolana Havelková during her travels through Czechia. It reflects the change of the billboard copywriting language in the time between two global crises that have shaken the society: the financial crisis in 2008–2009 and the pandemic crisis (2020–2021). The slogans form the visual part as well as the content of the billboards.
The advertising slogans usually encourage us to change our lives or to make our dreams come true, to buy a product, or to protect our belongings or our wellbeing. Once the subject of advertising is absent, the appropriated slogans are reduced to wordplays. They provide near-boundless space for our imagination, and encourage us to think of the content and meaning of the texts that have surrounded us for years.
The visual form of The Highway Poems has become the basis for the rhetorical performance by David Dvořák and Tomáš Jeřábek.
This project was picked up for realization by the jury that assessed the open competition of the Vltavská Gallery. The Vltavská Gallery was established by the joint effort of the Prague Public Transit Company and the Prague City Gallery as part of the program “Art for the City”, as an area suitable for temporary art interventions.
