Otis Laubert

"We basically lived on the streets, at that time it was very fashionable, this so-called "beatnik" movement" And Vlado married Olga Urminska and while they were expecting a child, Vlado's parents regretted it and lent him a brick hut in Lamač, where they allowed them to live since they are expecting a baby. And of course, they took me with them, so that I have a place to sleep instead of spending whole days with Vlado Weiser on the streets. Thus, I became a part of that housing. I slept in the back in a tool shed. And we lived there very freely, at that time very happily according to our criteria. That was in 1968. They had a seven-week-old baby in 1969. We lived about a year in that cottage together, once I went with friends on a trip somewhere in central Slovakia. When I came back, Olga, Vlado and little Oleg were not home. That was a pretty huge shock to me. First, the fact that such a close friend would escape without telling me anything to the West, which meant that I will never see him again. And the second thing, I was staying in someone else's cottage, I understood that I have to leave somewhere tomorrow. And that was a very powerful moment of realization of the bitter truth about the occupation."

"Since I did not graduate from the academy, I graduated from the school of applied visual arts, I was not interested, I do not even know if it was possible, to join the Association. The situation was as far as I know from friends, that every graduate of the Academy automatically became a member of the lowest degree. And they were already entitled, as a member, it was called the Association of Slovak Fine Artists, or so, they were already entitled to apply for an exhibition, solo, or to participate in a collective. Since I had neither the ambition nor the diploma, I didn't even think about whether I would like to take part in some exhibition. And those programs were quite often thematic, social assignments or political, so I was not interested in that after all. Because I never dealt with it and internally identified with it. This means, that there was no reason why I would apply for an exhibition, I don't know, 50 years after the first congress of the Communist Party or Victory February or such great thematic assignments. So it was only after the Velvet Revolution, after the fall of the regime, that a free opportunity opened up for me, as for other fellow friends who had the opportunity to exhibit. Of course, not everyone wanted to, most of them did not want to participate in those pro-regime thematic assignments. So I had the opportunity only after the revolution. Basically, I was an unknown person to the public, because the general public did not register me as a visual artist. "