Happy Excess by Daniel Chluba: An Ironic Hate Project Targeting Affluent Culture

In Daniel Chluba's exhibition Happy Excess, a dystopian panorama of Western affluence unfolds, shattering all pretenses of "respectable society." This multimedia performance installation fuses elements of party culture—complete with a bar, strobe lights, and DJ—into an ironic homage to the hedonism and excesses of capitalism. Alcohol flows freely, while the DJ relentlessly blurs the lines between intoxication and escape, thrusting the audience into a state of fatigue and ecstatic surrender.

The scene evokes the nihilism of the Dadaists, who once mocked the social and political absurdities of their time through radical performances and biting irony. Chluba’s “hate project” borrows from this tradition, ridiculing the shallowness of modern affluent culture—a culture glimmering in dazzling hues yet ultimately hollow and meaningless. Here, the party becomes a self-destructive ritual of contemporary society, where consumption and revelry seem to be the only purpose.

Happy Excess overwhelms the senses, reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s “Exploding Plastic Inevitable” parties of the 1960s, where art and celebration fused into an immersive whirlwind that dissolved the boundaries between life and art. Chluba updates this concept with a critical lens on today’s wellness industry and self-optimization culture, turning the act of partying into a statement of defiance. There is no room here for “good intentions” or “guilt”—the party space becomes a stage for an unleashed, ironic celebration of decadence.

The bar in the installation is not merely a site of hospitality; it’s a theatrical setting, like an altar to excess. Alcohol bottles are lined up like trophies of Western celebratory culture, each a relic of relentless consumption and social prestige. Chluba portrays alcohol not just as a substance of pleasure, but as an agent of transcendence that cuts across Western art history—from the Bacchanalia of antiquity to the Baroque feasts and the intoxicating bohemian gatherings of the modern era.

The strobe lights and sensory distortions turn the scene into a chaos of perception, engulfing visitors in an “aesthetic of overload,” a concept seen in Futurism and Expressionism. Chluba likens the promise of consumer culture’s happiness to a blinding flash of light, briefly obscuring reality and numbing the senses. What remains is a sobering effect when the lights go out and the party ends—only to begin again in an endless loop that exposes the emptiness beneath excess.

Chluba’s Happy Excess thus becomes an ironic hate project that escalates the circus of Western affluence to its extremes, culminating in an untamed celebration of irrationality. Here, the party itself becomes an art form, inviting the audience to lose themselves in a moment of ecstatic surrender while confronting the absurdity of affluent culture. Happy Excess is a call for ironic reflection—and a bitter aftertaste that lingers long after the party fades.