“There was a time when I saw sleep as something compulsory, forced […]. Now I know that sleep is not a passive but a continuation of what one does during the day. And perhaps that what happens during the day is just a preparatory stage, a collection of different materials: experiences, images, ideas, movements that get processed only in sleep.”—Eva Kot'átková
Published on the occasion of Eva Kot'átková's exhibition at Pirelli HangarBicocca in 2018, the book The Dream Machine is Asleep genuinely reflects the idea of the exhibition and follows a mechanism that aims to get the reader closer to a personal (but universal) inner archive and the different stages of sleep which are depicted by the artist throughout the show. With written contributions by Luigi Fassi, Petr Kot'átko (the artist's father), Eva Kot'átková, Lino Nobili, Roberta Tenconi, all the texts with their different tones—be they scientific, personal, or critical—are arranged as a unique flow that follows an overlapping path and shapes the dreamlike story the artist wants to tell.
Published following the eponymous exhibition at
Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, in 2018.
Eva Kot'átková (born 1982 in Prague, where she lives and works) studied at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts, the Prague Academy of Applied Arts, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the Akademie Bildende Kunst Wien between 2002 and 2007. In 2007, at the age of 25, she became the youngest person to be awarded the Jindrich Chalupecky Award for young artists in the Czech Republic. Kotatkova exhibits extensively internationally and in the Czech Republic, and her work is included in numerous private and public collections.
