How to talk to your dog about life in America / Regular Line Topoľčany - San Francisco

Regular Line (RL) is an international programme for Slovak artists to present their work and collaborate with local artists abroad (Europe, USA). It’s run by the Slovak Art organisation Platform 1-12 (Nastupiste 1-12). Platform 1-12 runs a multimedia space for contemporary art and culture in the underpass beneath the bus station of Topolcany, Slovakia. This unusual, urban gallery space offers to create and exhibit site-specific artworks and sustains dialogue between artists and non-traditional gallery viewers.

Wonderfully, I was selected by Platform 1-12 to take part in a three-week residency program in San Francisco, California. The international collaborative program was then presented by The Laundry SF space and curated by Zuzana Godálová from Platform 1-12, Topoľčany. 
Alongside four other Slovak artists and designers I spent three weeks in USA and created a series of drawings called "How to talk to your dog about life in America" that were later exhibited at The Laundry, San Francisco in the Mission District. The collection is a selection ripped off of my drawn diary that I kept during the stay reflecting the Tenderloin district with people living rough next to the apartments with the highest rents in the US, the tech bros pushing out original residents, and the breeze of freshness and realness I encountered in some underground Castro bars. 
The show was on from May 13 - May 30 2017

Read more about Nastupiste 1-12
Laundry SF space in San Francisco

Polokoro čávo @ Diera do sveta

Sú také okamihy a veci, ktoré nás znekľudňujú. Srdce sa nám zovrie v hrudi a v žalúdku cítime tvrdé rany. Vtedy sa dozvedáme, že minulosť nie je mŕtva a trpezlivo čaká v temných chodbách našich životov na to, kedy pôjdeme okolo, aby na nás žmurkla, hoc aj jedným okom, jak ten polokoro čávo z podniku naproti škole.

Diera do sveta ("A window into the world") is a cultural centre in the Liptov region. From Diera do sveta's website: "Our centre is at the beginning of a long journey of becoming a pulsing spot on the cultural and art map. We want to support local producers and artists and would like to bring something that is lacking in Liptov - not only good literature, but also new visions regarding meeting up and learning. We aim to engage the attention of children and set up regular readings for them and try to cultivate their personalities."

Impressed by the centre's activities, I prepared a collection of small dimension works that would fit in their multi-purpose space. All drawings are about moments and things that make us nervous, when hearts feel sore in our chests and there's a certain hardness in our stomach. Then we learn that the past is not dead and yet patiently waits in the dark corridors of our lives for the moment when we walk past to blink at us, even with one eye, like the half-blind chav from the bar across the road.

opening April 21 at 6pm

Show is on until June 23

link Diera do sveta / find out more about the space

Afterlife @ Nitra gallery

I curated an exhibition of my students' works at the Nitra gallery called 'Afterlife.'

The Afterlife project presents the current state and a selection of works by students of the Studio of Graphics and Experimental Arts at Department of Fine Arts and Intermedia at the Faculty of Arts at The Technical University of Košice. The studio is currently led by prof. Péter Rónai.

The title refers to the life “after” the artistic profession which awaits the students after they graduate. Nitra Gallery offered them the opportunity to leave the campus premises for a change and create or reinstall their artworks in a new context. The title of the Studio of Graphics and Experimental Arts carries a reference to traditional media, but the artworks created over the last years cannot be categorised as neither graphics nor drawing. They move freely between media, explore technical and formal options of 2D and 3D imagery, respond to current world trends and formulate a statement of their own generation influenced by sub- and pop-cultural impulses, cynicism and miscellaneousness of thinking.

Check out the photos from the opening and the exhibition views here 

Ko-shické metro @ GEF

   
Vlado Beskid curated an exhibition at the Emil Filla Gallery in Ústí n/Labem in the Czech Republic. The exhibition entitled "Ko-Shish Metro" has the ambition to introduce contemporary visual art from Košice - the metropolis of Eastern Slovakia to the audience in Ústí nad Labem. Košice is a home to a specific local art scene, supported and enhanced by the Faculty of Arts of the Technical University  (since 1998). The students and graduates of this new art school form the basis of a strong upcoming generation in Slovakia after 2000. Many of them have established themselves not only in the Slovak but also in the European context.

I created a site-specific installation "Tukabel" where the electric cables come out of a drywall and form a structure that could be both concrete and abstract. 

FolkNow.sk @ Berlin Blue Art Space

Zuzana Danková curated a pop-up exhibition called 'Folk-Now.sk'. The exhibition presents current works of the Slovak artists, who, in their own various ways, find an inspiration in a traditional Slovak folklore, drawing on its subject matters and technique (needlecraft, pyrography). The artists reinterpret and revive folklore topics and motifs (common life, folk costumes, an ornament, etc.), while adding new meanings and actualizations by their focus on a contemporary social issues. The exhibition presents an image of the relation between the Slovak art and a folklore tradition and a past, while being their critical and even an ironical reevaluation.

The Folk-Now.sk presents selected works of the following artists:

Dávid Demjanovič & Jarmila Mitríková, Ivana Šáteková, Kundy Crew, Jarmila Sabová, Svetlana Fialová.