Gideon Horváth’s performance in Branicki Gardens

30.06.2024, 12:00 pm
free entrance

One of the legends about King Midas tells about his closely guarded secret – donkey ears, with which the ruler was punished by the god Apollo. Midas hid them under his headdress, and the shameful secret was known only to his barber. (In another version of this tale – the pre-Islamic legend of King Ossounes of the Yenisei basin – the confidant was the last surviving barber in the kingdom; all previous ones had been ordered murdered by the ruler.) Unable to bear the weight of the secret entrusted to him, Midas’ hapless barber was told to go to a meadow, dig a hole, whisper the words “the king has donkey ears” into it, and quickly bury it. Some time later, a clump of reeds grew in this place, which began to repeat the same phrase: “The king has donkey ears, the king has donkey ears, the king has donkey ears…”. According to some legends, the coming to light of this secret led Midas to suicide.

On June 30 at 12:00 pm, a performance by Hungarian artist Gideon Horváth will take place in the Branicki Gardens by the Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok. Playing the role of a mythical creature, he will tell stories originating in ancient legends about shame and its role in non-heteronormative history. The audience will be invited to participate in a ritual prepared by Horváth using the artist’s main sculptural material – sensual, liquid and ambivalent beeswax.