Expectation

"We are no longer alone, we are waiting for the night, we are waiting for Godot, we are waiting for ... waiting." Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1952)

"Waiting for waiting," says one of the characters in Beckett's absurd play - a phrase that captures the paradox of modern existence. Isn't this the prevailing state of contemporary subjectivity? We find ourselves in a constant state of anticipatory tension, always ready on the threshold of an elusive breakthrough: just one more step, one more thing, one more attempt - and then it will happen.

We are all waiting for different outcomes, or perhaps we are quietly united in waiting for the same thing. We wait for wars to end or break out again, for political currents to turn, for ecological disaster or salvation, for an email, a message, a sign. At heart, we are all waiting for our Godot — vague arrivals, promised events or resolutions that are constantly postponed. As with Beckett, we wait while life goes on — around us, with us and without us. There is no better way to physically experience time than by waiting for something. It is the closest relationship humanity can have with time.

Who is Godot and what does waiting mean? Is it an act or an absence of action? A physical pause or emotional limbo? Is waiting a default existential state, a silent prelude to the inevitable end? This exhibition presents artistic reflections on the nature of waiting and how this endurance can be made visible and tangible.

The title of the project consists of the German and Czech words Erwartung/Očekávání, reflecting the collaboration between artists from Germany and the Czech Republic. Both words mean "expectation," but at the same time embody the dual nature of waiting—the anticipation of something external and the confrontation with the internal demands of one's own and others' expectations (warten/čekat). This linguistic play reveals the fundamental tension in life between expectation and waiting, planning and flowing, predicting and hoping. Waiting and expectation shape the experience of time in a special way: time does not become homogeneous, but is punctuated by interruptions. Temporality is not uniform and continuous; on the contrary, there are various transitions, endings and beginnings, phases when time rushes by and moments when it freezes. Through diverse artistic perspectives, Erwartung/Expectation explores how waiting and expectation create meaning in relation to hope, doubt and uncertainty, and how they reveal the very nature of time.