Roman Ondák
Untitled, 2005
Plastic plate, string
dimensions variable
Roman Ondák’s works often look more straightforward than they are. Untitled (2005) is a multi-coloured string barrier, installed across the room, with a sign that reads ‘DEADLINE POSTPONED UNTIL TOMORROW’. The (dead) line blocking off part of a room thereby becomes a visual pun. His conceptual installations reveal humorous paradoxes, non-sensical societal observations or witty ways to depict much more complex relationships.
Ondák grew up in the Slovak region under (post-)communism in what was then Czechoslovakia. This work is an example of how he questions the systems of inclusion and exclusion that emerged under this societal order. The perpetual postponement to the near-future could also be seen as a subtle dig at the promise of plenty for everyone that ended in a political system that still favoured an elite.