The Dark Side of Paradise

In his book Artificial Paradises, from 1860, Charles Baudelaire describes states caused by hashish, opium and wine and warns his readers against the destructive effects of the illusions of pleasure these drugs can cause. In Nitra Gallery’s Bunker, in 2018, Andrej Kolenčík holds an exhibition titled the Dark Side of Paradise that responds to the reality we live in. He alerts us about all the mundane artifi-cial paradises that enter our bloodstream either consciously or subconsciously as well as the dark side of our illusions of perfection, efficiency, desires and needs, the only correct answers and prototypes of beauty, shining from billboards and screens. 

Right here, it’s a Paradise on Earth. Or it could be. On the other, dark side of the world, people are suffering. Because, for instance, we want strawberries in the winter. We are lied to, disappointed, we lie to both others and ourselves. We always have time to waste time, just so we do not have to accom-plish anything. Just complain. We have a choice, though. Every coin has two sides – good and evil, beauty and ugliness, normalcy and deviancy. And yet we often choose the exact opposite of what we really want. 

Andrej Kolenčík’s first solo exhibition in Nitra presents his view of the world and the current social landscape. His point of view might seem unexpected, strange, distant, maybe even deviant. Neverthe-less, it is authentic and honest. For the post-apocalyptic space of the Bunker, he created a multi-media environment, a paradise of underground pleasures, a “post-eden” setting for this post-factual age. Post-comics, post-graffiti, post-graphic post-design, post-art… all of this and much more and maybe even something completely different can be found in an organic web of still and motion pictures, ob-jects, noises and clamor, on the walls, projected on screens, both in real and unreal space, in restored or refrained time. 

“It’s going to be a hell of a ride!”
— O. M., Curator