START POINT PRIZE – Prize for emerging artists

Although the genres and media of Benjamin Orlow’s works are very diverse, they all somehow combine strong emotions and their inappropriateness. The video Die gross Love tells us in the first part a story of World War II through a found footage and propaganda slogans, while the narrator tries to articulate rapidly and hastily his purely personal experience with the cruelty and absurdity of violence. The second part surprisingly deals with carefree youngsters’ memories, when on the background of an antiquated promotional film about the cruise ships it tells a personal story about the other side of social oppression. Another, much more intimate video Morfarland presents through the words and tears of an old Swedish woman the romantic poem about eternal love, written in 1852 by Zacharias Topelius. To get into even more emotional and intellectual confusion, two drawings of the highest men in the world in a life-size measure are illuminated by giant red shutters. (Pavel Vančát)