Everyday Exotic @ Société Budapest

    We all collect something. Some of us collect shells, some feathers, colored pieces of glass smoothed by the waves of the sea, phone cards, badgers, ceramic pots, tribal masks or fossils. We all share the infinitely human desire to collect. The collectors, hunting for fossils, shells, zoological creatures, pieces of art or books had presented their unique treasures to the public already in the 1600’s in the so-called ‘wunderkammers’. The collections known as ‘wonder rooms’ consisted of extraordinary and exceptional objects that told stories about the miracles and oddities of nature.The Société house has now become a wonder room, the spaces of which welcome an international group exhibition that offers a journey to a hybrid visual universe of rituality, functionalism and abstraction, never seen before in Hungary, and displays some of the miracles of contemporary art.The artists invited to the exhibition share the passion for fearless experimenting, the courage to step out from the conventional and traditional galleries to throw out fine art itself from its century-old ivory towers and to display their art in a new context, before a new audience.The exhibition presents the full range of modern materials used by the young generation of contemporary art; hence, it shows a large variety of works of art and such artistic diversity is a significant focal point of the exhibition. The invited eleven young artists have brought ceramic sculptures, plaster objects decorated with feathers, pieces of art made of neon tubes, leatherette, glass, plastic and rubber or even steel propelled by a disco engine.Besides that, the exhibition intends to test our personal relations to private (works of art) and public (the multifunctional exhibition space), putting the visitors off deliberately from the traditional meaning of enjoyment of art while analyzing the monomaniac passion of society for the material world. The exhibition aims to make the visitors oscillate between the symbolic and practical use of the works of art and supersede the preconceptions related to contemporary art.The objects, even if they are presented in a contemporary ‘wunderkammer’, placed in glass-cases or just spread all around the house, keep the focus always on the infinitely humanist act of collecting. Just like these pieces of art were the everyday- or ritual objects of a distant culture, brought to us to question our understanding of the difference between a work of art and a functional object.

Exhibiting artists:

Benczúr Emese (HU), Ember Sári (BR-HU), Svetlana Fialova (SK), Habima Fuchs (CZ), Győri Andrea Éva (HU), Keresztes Zsófia (HU), Kiss Adrian (HU-RO), Olga Micinska (PL), Moizer Zsuzsanna (HU), Ulbert Ádám (HU)

Curator: Sárvári Zita

Sponsors: The Slovak Institute in Budapest, Polish Institute in Budapest

Photo credit: Bíró Dávid

Link to Société's site here

LINKA @ Plusminusnula gallery

Besides my artistic practice, I also teach at the Faculty of Arts, Technical University of Košice. In March 2018, this fantastic student workshop took place at the Plusminusnula gallery in Žilina, Slovakia. It resulted in a group show. Read more about the project below:

FU TUKE Students: LINE. Not a goal line, not a bus line, nor one created with an eyeliner. Line is the topic and name of the workshop for students of the Department of Visual Arts and Intermedia of the Faculty of Arts of the Technical University of Košice. They will spend an intense creative week at the Plusmínusnula Gallery, reacting to the assignment under supervision of Svetlana Fialová and Boris Sirka, gaining new experience, setting up lines to link them together, and ultimately a group exhibition.The workshop concentrates on line and the way it is grasped in an artist’s mind, on paper and in space. The students will concentrate on the moment when a line materializes, passing from thought to the physical space around us — transforming from something abstract and vague into a concrete visual form.The young authors will in the background of the gallery work with line in space, in video animation, in site-specific installations, in sound recordings, they will have a chance to try out the screen printing technique, get acquainted with book binding, but also experiment with the art of tattoo. The spectators will have a chance to experience not only the exhibition itself, but also what goes on behind the scenes of the gallery during the students’ creative process.
Artists and workshop participants: Katarína Bajkayová, Sara Biharyová, Oskar Felber, Dávid Galovics, Tomáš Kocka, Kristína Roxerová
Lecturers: Svetlana Fialová, Boris Sirka
Cooperation: Slavomíra Ondrušová, Jaro Viňarský, Lucia Gašparovičová, Ján Gašparovič, Lida Mlichová, Martin Krkošek (Uutěrky)
The exhibitions in this gallery were supported by public funding from the Slovak Arts Council. The project is supported by the Tatra Bank grant program Viac umenia 2017.
Text: Svetlana Fialová, Lucia Gašparovičová
Translation: Michal Spáda
Foto: Peter Snadík
Read about the workshop and the exhibition here

Ko-shicke metro @ P.M. Bohúň Gallery

In 2017, Vlado Beskid curated an exhibition at the Emil Filla Gallery in Ústí n/Labem in the Czech Republic. The exhibition entitled "Ko-Shické Metro" had 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.

The next stop of the metro from Košice in 2018 is the Slovak Liptov region. Here, at the PM Bohun Gallery, a slightly varied group of artists showed their newest works and projects.

I presented a series of new drawings called Prostřeno (unfinished series of 40 A4 drawings) and two larger pieces - Unsuccessful attempts to meditate I and Unsuccessful attempts to meditate II. 

Participating artists: Lucia DOVIČÁKOVÁ, Slavomír DURKAJ, Svetlana FIALOVÁ,  Katarína HLADEKOVÁ - Ondřej HOMOLA, Maroš KONTROŠ, Jaro KYŠA,  Matúš LÁNYI, Martin LUKÁČ, Boris SIRKA, Denisa SPODNIAKOVÁ, Simona ŠTULEROVÁ,  Ján VASILKO,  Monika VRANCOVÁ, Ján ZELINKA, Vlasta ŽÁKOVÁ

read about the exhibition in Slovak here

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