Information
Artists
Karol Baron, David Cajthaml, Ladislav Čarný, Žofia Dubová, Ján Ďurina, Ľudovít Fulla, Mira Gáberová, Milota Havránková, Vladimír Havrilla, Bohdan Hostiňák, Michal Jakabčic, Július Jakoby, Anton Jasusch, Vladimír Kordoš, Marek Kvetan, Miroslava Kučišová, Petra Nováková – Ondreičková, Peter Matejka, Stanislav Masár, Milan Paštéka, Rastislav Podoba, Veronika Rónaiová, Dorota Sadovská, Ivana Sláviková, Pavla Sceranková, Koloman Sokol, Jozef Srna st., Toyen, Viera Žilinčanová
Curator
Ľudmila Kasaj Poláčková
Opening
12 December 2019, 6pm
Duration
13 December 2019 – 29 March 2020
Venue
Representative Halls
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Funding
With financial support of the Slovak Arts Council public funds. The Council is the leading partner of the project.
The composition of the exhibition project titled Stories of (After) Life is a rather “surreal curatorial automatism” (if something like that is even allowed to exist in today’s world).
The exhibition is divided into two distinguishable lines, quarrels and traps – stories between: Dreams; Wishes; Desires and Everyday Life Routine. The two lines of dreams and realities in Stories of (After) Life are not surprising, on the contrary, they are the natural outcomes of this long-term project that follows Nitra Gallery’s earlier project, Death (in) Tales (2017-2018).
The Stories of (After) Life exhibition can be also perceived as a work of literature or a theatre play. Two interconnected story lines (Stories of Dreams, Desires and Wishes and Stories of Everyday Life Routine) contain nine different acts/micro-stories: Salvation(?); Wishes; Lucid Dreaming; You Are the Story; Revival; Condemnation; Emptiness, Anxiety of Life; Loneliness; Live(d) Existential Vitalism.
The curator herself tells the stories of loneliness, spirituality, dreaming, survival, freedom, self-realisation and fatefulness and tries and defines important human feelings that people have after suffering a personal trauma (e.g. loosing a loved one, surviving an accident or illness or leaving one’s homeland and living in a new society…). The artworks themselves are used to link her curatorial experience with creative elements that carry basic signs of a terminological apparatus of psychoanalysis or art therapy.
Artist Selection: Most of the artworks are a part of the Nitra Gallery’s acquisition fund. These artists include: Ladislav Čarný, Mira Gáberová, Milota Havránková, Michal Jakabčic, Július Jakoby, Vladimír Havrilla, Bohdan Hostiňák, Vladimír Kordoš, Marek Kvetan, Petra Nováková – Ondreičková, Stano Masár, Rastislav Podoba, Veronika Rónaiová, Dorota Sadovská, Pavla Sceranková, Viera Žilinčanová.
The rest of the presented pieces are on loan from: the Moravian Gallery in Brno (Toyen), Slovak National Gallery (Ľudovít Fulla, Anton Jasusch, Peter Matejka, Koloman Sokol, Jozef Srna st.), Ernest Zmeták Art Gallery in Nové Zámky (Milan Paštéka), Kysuce Gallery in Oščadnica (Karol Baron, Miroslava Kučišová), Peter Michal Bohúň Gallery in Liptov (Jozef Srna st.) and from the artists directly: David Cajthaml, Žofia Dubová, Ján Ďurina, Veronika Rónaiová, Ivana Sláviková.
The selection of the artists is miscellaneous on purpose and they cover many styles from avant-garde to young contemporary artists. The exhibition visitor is confronted with various artists, art movements, approaches and concepts. They include almost everything from avant-garde (Anton Jasusch, Július Jakoby, Ľudovít Fulla), to modernism (Peter Matejka), surrealism (Toyen, Karol Baron), expressionism (Koloman Sokol), magic realism (Michal Jakabčic, Viera Žilinčanová), new figuration (Milan Paštéka), post-conceptualism (Marek Kvetan, Stano Masár, Pavla Sceranková), hyper-realism (Veronika Rónaiová, Jozef Srna st.), process art (Ladislav Čarný, Ivana Sláviková), xerography art and geometric abstracts (Petra Nováková -Ondreičková), postmodernism (Bohdan Hostiňák)), video-art (Mira Gáberová), staged photography (Milota Havránková), post-photography (Ján Ďurina), analytical painting (Rastislav Podoba), contemporary landscape painting (Žofia Dubová, Miroslava Kučišová) and various levels of overlaps between styles and media (David Cajthaml, Vladimír Havrilla, Vladimír Kordoš, Dorota Sadovská).
The exhibition is accompanied with the publication of a bilingual catalogue that will include not only reproductions of the art pieces, but also a curatorial text based on the interpretation of the curator’s dreams. The curator uses her own dreams to interpret the individual themes/stories/artworks. The catalogue also includes texts by: Anna Hogenová, a philosopher and phenomenologist; Jozef Hašto, a psychiatrist; Daniel Pastirčák, a preacher and Waldemar Švabenský, an artist.
