Roman Ondak

Andrew Frost

The interaction between people is a complex thing. Traces left behind and the value of things are two subjects that fascinate Slovakian artist Roman Ondak whose works Swap, Measuring The Universe and Terrace are being staged at Parramatta Town Hall as part of Kaldor Projects contribution to this year’s Festival of Sydney.

Swap is a restaging of a 2011 work presented in Kaldor’s 13 Rooms performance art festival in early 2013 and which proved to be one of the most popular works in the show: a lone performer sits at a table with a range of objects and, as each new visitor enters the space, the performer swaps an object with something the visitor considers to be of equal value. The numbers of objects are slowly whittled down until only one object remains, and the process begins again the next day.

For Measuring the Universe, the height of every visitor to the gallery is measured and marked on a wall, creating a gently undulating but densely packed array of names and numbers that snakes around the walls. For Terrace, a reproduction of Ondak’s terrace home in Bratislava, the visitor is plunged into a weird and eerie architectural uncanny.

Until January 24

Parramatta Town Hall, Parramatta

Roman Ondak at Kaldor Arts Projects

Pic: Roman Ondak, Measuring the Universe, 2009.