Daniela & Linda Dostálková
New Lovers: How to Train Your Virgin
From the series New Lovers published in VOGUE CS 3/2019
2019
Photograph
Print on archival paper
70 x 90 cm
Edition 1/3 + 2AP

On view in The M Lounge.

The eponymous photo series captures the New Lovers book edition of Badlands Unlimited (NYC) which is primarily dedicated to non-readers. The series of erotic novels conceived by early staged female writers was initiated by American artist Paul Chan, and the graphic design of New Lovers pays homage to the classic covers of the books published by Olympia Press (founded in 1953, Paris). The costumes the model wears were initially created by artists for the exhibition We are still the same and you are always more, specifically a video titled The Anecdote in 2018.

Daniela & Linda Dostálková work as a duo and live in Prague. Linda graduated from Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem (2015) and Scenography at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno (2005). She was a researcher at Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht (2016). Daniela studied at Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Department of New media under prof. Grzegorz Kowalski (2005). They work as curators at PLATO Ostrava and are represented by Piktogram Gallery in Warsaw.

The work of Daniela & Linda Dostálková deals with a concept of the autonomous hybrid social ‘art practice’—blurring the lines between disciplines and challenging accepted distinctions in the questioning of identity. They trace unexpected articulations of alternative/commodified forms of organizations that are based in the art world and its institutional structures—understanding social phenomena, objects, things, and concepts and the fluidity of boundaries between them.

Daniela & Linda Dostálková approach art as a form of articulation that deals with the ways by which a commodity and its economic environment activate us. They have been interested in the paradoxical relationship between the apparently mutually contradictory logic of the world of corporate strategies and the world of art. Their work can be perceived as a form of commentary on and critical observation of aspects of contemporary society, which they are representing by using associative means from psychology and corporate strategies.