Ezra Šimek: There Ain’t No Trail to Follow

Ezra Šimek There Ain’t No Trail to Follow June 2, 7pm opening duration: June 3 – 23 „The trans* body is the epistemology of sexual difference what American continents were to the Spanish empire: a place of such richness and culture that it beggared the imperial imagination. A place of mining and extermination of life. Our trans* organs are to the heteropatriarchal system what Potosí silver mines were to the patriarchal-colonial unconscious. The silver is extracted from the earth and the miner is buried in the shaft. Our organs are Amazonian rubber and the gold of the Sierras. Our organs are the oil that the normative sexual machine requires in order to function. Everywhere, the trans* body is hated, and, at the same time, fantasized, desired and consumed.“ (Paul B. Preciado: Can The Monster Speak?) The Trans* Vagabond embarked on an uncertain journey and there is no saying where and how their adventure ends. They used to have their life quite neatly organized. The Sun has always been there as a compass and as a clock. But what are time and directions good for when your insides burn with a flame of desire to be truly yourself? There Ain’t No Trail To Follow, a solo show of Ezra Šimek at Gallery Phoinix, presents two films; the first two episodes of The Trans* Vagabond’s story. The first steps on a mysterious quest that takes you to old abandoned and long forgotten mining towns of the old Wild West, where land is scourged and only your curiosity can temporarily quench that horrifying thirst, and maybe the Lone Ranger himself will hand you a wear-down mug filled with notions challenging your original perceptions of the place. From there you’ll get to the eternally green lands of the witches, castles, and caves of forcefully repressed dreams. Only to discover that the witches survived but in old stories full of hatred and attempts to dominate over them. And suddenly it seems, that there is nothing to grasp, that there’s no way to find new bearings – where the Trans* Vagabond should go next… Yet there is always hope, there are always some hidden markings and almost vanished footsteps on the mudpath in front of you, and so the Trans* Vagabond continues with their journey and you’re invited to follow… BIO: Ezra Šimek (*1997, Munich) graduated in Photography (Studio of New Aesthetic) from Prague’s Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and now continues with their MA in TransArts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, diploma studies at the Digital Media and Moving Image Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna as well as an MA in contemporary art theory at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia. In their work, Ezra primarily deals with queer identity politics and sensitivity around language, presented through various time-based media (film, performative lecture, computer game) or site-responsive installations, sound works and writing. They explore gender as a societal construct comparable to mythology that attempts to create more fictional narratives and to boost synergy between different shattered realities of our times and fantasy and thus create a new inclusive and speculative reality. Their work has been presented within the Czech art scene at Prague exhibition venues Ankali (2021), City Surfer Office (2020), or GAMU (2019, 2020) and abroad, for example at Haus Wien, Vienna (2021).