New Interfaces 04/ Zuzana Jakalová – When I start working again, things will be better.

MEDIUM Gallery, Hviezdoslavovo Square 18, Bratislava

In this lecture, I will attempt to propose a more differentiated reading of Eva Kmentová's work in the context of theories of chronicity and critical disability studies. I will confront the above-mentioned art-historical reflections on Kmentová's illness with her own self-perception, self-presentation, and self-narrative as recorded in her visual and written diaries. Through this lens, I will also attempt to reinterpret some of her works. On a broader scale, I will use this case study to point out problematic art-historical and curatorial constructions, representations, and narratives of artists' lives and work (such as talent, artistic genius, etc.).

Eva Kmentová (1928–1980), one of the most renowned Czechoslovak sculptors, lived for many years with a serious chronic illness that deeply affected her life and work. Nevertheless, in art-historical and curatorial reflections on her work, this complex experience appears only as a footnote, and even when it does, it is usually interpreted rather superficially - either as a misfortune that prevented her from "properly completing her life's work," a transcendental experience that gave her work "existential depth," or a heroic act ("she worked despite her illness") that added to her personal mythology.

Zuzana Jakalová (*1986) is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Art Theory and History, Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology (FaVU VUT). She co-led studio VU1 at UMPRUM in Prague (with Dominik Lang). She has worked as a curator of public programs at the Bratislava City Gallery and as a curator at Display — Association for Research and Collective Practice in Prague. She served as curator of the residency program at the Center for Contemporary Art MeetFactory in Prague, and also at Prádelny Bohnice, an art space and gallery in a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Prague. She is the author and curator (with Hana Janečková) of the long-term discursive project Multilogues on the Now on intersections of health and care in contemporary art and society. She is the author and editor of the Czech–Slovak thematic book series .txt, consisting of essays on socially and politically urgent yet publicly under-discussed topics (e.g., Bez súhlasu.txt on rape culture; Iné telá.txt on disability). Together with Zbyněk Baladrán she co-founded the hybrid collaborative publishing platform Display focused on texts between art theory and contemporary emancipatory thought. She studied at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, and Interactive Media Theory at Masaryk University in Brno, and completed her PhD at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology. She has completed residencies and research fellowships, among others, at MuseumsQuartier and the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna, the CEC ArtsLink Residency at Triangle Arts Association in New York, Bluecoat in Liverpool, the University of Manchester, and Arsenal Gallery in Białystok. She has been a member of and chaired committees at the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the Slovak Arts Council, the Arts and Theatre Institute, the International Visegrad Fund, etc. She has published in Flash Art CZ/SK, A2, Artalk, Kapitál, and other media.

The leitmotif of the fourth edition of the lecture series New Interfaces 04 is the body and corporeality in the age of digital technologies. We are interested in themes of embodiment as well as the sublimation of the bodily within digital interfaces, non-normative bodies, the animality of corporeality, and the body’s memory, which artists explore in their works across various media and forms.

Supported using public funding by the Slovak Arts Council.