The set of works by Rigová shown here in première, specially prepared by her for solo presentation in Kunsthalle LAB, was inspired by the cultural environment of New York.
The motif of the red apple, which we find infiltrated throughout the entire collection of works, provides a certain unifying element. It is the symbolic essence, the point of the entire exhibition. The visual motif of loli phabaj (loli = red, phabaj = apple) points to the etymology of the word lollipop, that much-loved “lolly” of American pop culture, whose prefiguration and origin the artist finds in certain silenced contexts of the history of Roma culture.

In Lady L. the statue of freedom is costumed in a typically decorative Roma headscarf with a feminist accent (emphasis on the femininity and politics of the artist’s body), while her customary attributes are exchanged for apples pierced on a rod (in Roma culture those were designed for roasting). The image is a symbolic personification and retrieval (correction) of the Roma starting-point of American popular culture.

from curatorial text by Nina Vrbanová