Martin Derner: KNIHOMOĽ (bookworm)
We invite you to a solo exhibition by Martin Derner, a lecturer at the Drawing Cabinet, which will take place from May 7, 2026 at Roman Fecik Gallery in Bratislava.
Roman Fecik Gallery, Zámočnícka 8, Bratislava
Exhibition duration: from 8 May to 12 June 2026.
Curator: Jana Babušiaková
In his artistic practice, Martin Derner employs neo-conceptual strategies in two-dimensional media (printmaking, collage, manipulated photography), as well as in intermedia extensions into spatial forms of art.
The exhibition at Roman Fecik Gallery presents a selection of his works with a focus on book objects, which he has been developing since 2004. The selection spans various periods, with a leitmotif centered around the circle, emerging from both physical and metaphorical modifications of books.
His work primarily involves creating new situations and modes of reading. In the presented works, the artist does not respond primarily to specific content, but rather to the book as a phenomenon. Defragmentation and rearrangement of elements, layering or decomposition, and play with the given properties of the book as an object (such as page-edge coloring, bookbinding, etc.) form part of a process through which rectangular objects are transformed into circular forms—so-called mandalas.
The title of the exhibition, Bookworm, can also be read as a reference to the dual nature of the book—on the one hand as an object of meaning that is “devoured” through reading, and on the other as a material object that can be consumed, reflecting even the colloquial term for organisms that damage books.
About the artist:
Martin Derner (*1973) is a Slovak visual artist. His long-term practice focuses on drawing, printmaking, and intermedia approaches, exploring everyday life, visual systems, and shifts in meaning within ordinary situations. His work has been presented internationally and is included in the collections of several major galleries in Slovakia and abroad.