The Exchange project is based in the lecture of Boris Groys: On the Use of Theory by Art and Use of Art by Theory. In his lecture, Groys speaks, among other things, about “the desire to be social within the society of difference and the economy of exchange”, when the individual gives to the others what he has and what they do not have, while as a result of the exchange, he receives what the others have and what he does not have. According to Groys, the society of difference is the society of communication. The market of opinions represents an exchange of discourses and information items, i.e. it represents a model similar to the market of common trade commodities. The initial goal of the theoretical discourse is not the intention to communicate our personal opinions to others or to inform but the communication itself, replaced by “conversion” in the theoretical discourse.
From the formal perspective, the Exchange is a response to the unusual offer of the management of an undisclosed house of prostitution in the centre of Prague to realise an exhibition project for one of the company’s houses of prostitution in the Holešovice Market Hall. Together with the exhibition’s co-author Zdeněk Porcal, we decided not to refuse pejoratively this problematic and borderline situation and to integrate in the common cycle entitled Reframed. The work of art includes producing a cycle consisting of twelve objects of a standardised size of 100 x 12 x 12 cm.
The numbered and documented objects will be installed directly into particular rooms of the staff members of the house of prostitution, taking into account the layout of individual interiors. Within a certain deadline, the women offering their services in individual rooms will have a chance to give, free of charge, the work of art to any customer visiting them, while the decision to make the donation will be at the discretion of every particular girl. In this manner, twelve fragments of the single work of art are thus gradually given away more or less randomly without any further author’s control.