Daniel Balabán

“That uncle didn’t really understand art much, and if yes then only indirectly. He might have known his way around classic modern art but definitely not the post-modern painting that I had been propagating. He did, however, send me books, I have to give him that. I had many books thanks to him. It must have been expensive even for him because back then a book cost around twenty, sometimes even forty dollars. He paid the money for it, even though the content of it was horrible to him. He always wrote me that he was sending it with great concerns. On the other hand, he probably believed it would be of use to me. I have these books to this day; I really love them, and I know every page of them because it had been like a window to the world to me. He also used to send me literature. That’s why I could read Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti or Gregory Corso in English even though it was later published in Czech. I used to get different warnings with these books: ‘Please don’t read this, it was written by a gay.’ Or: ‘The guys say that Ginsberg is Freedom Bullshit but I am sending it to you anyway.’”

“I exhibited my work at an abandoned bus terminal in Strašnice where I had had to build scaffolding, create fake walls, bring the paintings and hang them. Many interesting people from the alternative scene came to the vernissage, as well as a delegation from the regional national committee of Prague 10 which commanded that two paintings had to be taken down. On the front wall there was an Amazonian parrot, tied with straps on a cauliflower field and right next to it was a painting of Virgin Mary on the Moon. The officers figured out that this had in fact been a cryptograph. Based on their interpretation, the parrot signified the Pope. It was at the time of this affair when Husák and Jakeš didn’t want to let the Pope visit Czechoslovakia – and apparently I reacted to it in such a cunning way. In the end I only took down the Virgin Mary and the parrot stayed.”