Jokes – Mila Panic

Jokes
2022 – ongoing

Jokes are stand-up comedy events within gallery and institutional settings. Humour is used to critique, subvert, and change dominant cultural narratives. Yet the sound of active laughter is very rarely heard in the context of an art exhibition. At a time when political correctness and cancel culture have made stand-up comedy a risky form of expression, I find that it is important to examine/present its role within contemporary art.

I use humour to create liberating moments and to laugh and look into topics such as selective empathy, politics, war, displacement, or desperate situations and observations. In my practice, stand-up comedy, visual art and writing come from the same place – from a spectrum of irritation, anger and madness, and what lies underneath and drives all of it is fear. These elements became the basis for me to reshape the visitor’s perspectives on given topics.