At Blickle Raum Spiegelgasse, Alex Franz Zehetbauer begins in spring 2025 a new phase of inquiry—into the role of the jester, who, in Commedia dell’arte and popular theatre, is the figure that can speak the truth: a.k.a. improvise and break the fourth wall. A jester doesn’t need a stage, just a crowd. He digests the world and spits it back out (from one end or the other). This excrement is then presented to the audience as art. He thus (re)presents the unknowable, the uncontrollable, the abject.

The jester is a figure of archaic questioning and border-crossing. He dances between hierarchical orders, playfully undermines the learned system and creates free spaces in narrow social corridors. Unadapted and with unexpected twists and turns, he eludes any logical algorithm. The questions he raises are multidimensional and provoke a reaction – immediate and individual. The jester and his audience move methodically outside of linear knowledge transfer. Rather, the process of getting to know, revealing and seeing through takes place by means of artistic expression.

This research residency opens a space for listening to the gut, slipping on meaning, and laughing at the mess. Songs may surface, objects may ooze, and nothing is off-limits. The fool is loose.