Rastislav Sedlačík / LandSKaping 2015_2022 Collateral Damage - Rebirth
Rastislav Sedláčik, in cooperation with other AFAD figures exhibits at the Center of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Toruń, Poland.
Curators: Noro Lacko, Krzysztof Białowicz
Installation: Marcel Benčík, Noro Lacko, Rastislav Sedlačík
Graphic design: Marcel Benčík
Mapping: Samulel Chovanec
Rastislav Sedlačík's intention is to present an extended painting strategy that escapes traditional thinking about this medium. The starting material for this project was created over a period of several years and mostly consisted of small drawings, collages and photocopies, which were later used to create large-format paintings and assemblages. The main goal of these works is to unconventionally illustrate the changes taking place in the contemporary Slovak landscape.
The exhibition consists of the series: FactoryLand, LandSKaping and Catcher Zone, which refer to painting supplemented with digital registration. The presented project is intended to be based on works which - made with painting means - tried to go beyond the limits of this medium. The place of implementation (CCA Toruń) becomes not only an exhibition space, but also an alternative painting laboratory - a field of artistic experiment.
In recent years, the emphasis in Rastislav Sedlačík's work has shifted from recording landscape outdoors, towards an experiment recording the process of changes taking place in it today. This applies to such phenomena as uncontrolled interference by residents in the architectural form of housing estates, single-family houses, the lack of a coherent visual concept of development activities, thinking patterns related to the idea of how a landscape should look like, based on the tradition of landscape painting.
Every day we observe various movements that disturb the landscape, resulting either from social processes or from actions caused by nature. It is accompanied by degradation and rebirth, decay and reappearance. Sedlačík's paintings (objects) are often created on the outskirts of cities, human habitats, where architecture adjoins natural areas, where human activity comes into contact with nature, interacting with each other.
Pictures - structures created on the basis of field records and Sedlačík's landscape notations - appear at the exhibition, referring to the form of the diagram associated with the title BEHIND THE PAINTING. In the presented project, we see drawings, graphics, hybrid works, objects, site specific installations, painting works created in a traditional way or as a result of submitting to processes occurring in nature.
In Rastislav Sedlačík's work, the visual clash between what is planned and what is accidental has come to the fore. The artist described this phenomenon as "random order". It is about both what is in the picture and what it was made of. The composition of the facade of a residential building at night, with an irregular constellation of lighted windows, can be seen as a visually appealing representation that foreshadows Sedlačík's concept.
The gradually widened range of means used by Sedlačík allowed him to keep a distance and greater freedom in playing with art, which became a way to escape from the rules and limitations imposed by traditional painting. This non-obvious artistic vision was brutally verified in March 2022 - an unexpected challenge appeared before the artist. Almost all of his artistic achievements in recent years have been destroyed in a fire in a warehouse in Bratislava. This tragic situation generated the idea to create a new value, a new concept for the exhibition, from what had survived. The project BEHIND THE PAINTING has become, in a literal sense, a search of rubble and rubble, but also referring to the myth of the Phoenix - a form of artistic revival.
More info: https://csw.torun.pl/wystawy-2/wystawa-rastislav-sedlacik-landskaping-2015_2022-40323/