Exhibition plan
2023&2024
* Exhibition plan 2023 * Exhibition plan 2024 *
Exhibition plan of Medium gallery for 2023:
an • ti • hyp • na • gog • ic
shit that makes you woke
Daniela Ponomarevová
Curator: Tomáš Moravanský
The exhibition refers to the visual language of communication on social networks and the video game narrative method of discovering and connecting individual information in space. A characteristic element in the project is the use of cardboard material as a dominant building element of the exhibition's overall architecture in a combination of drawing and graphic techniques. The work can be understood as an existential and at the same time reflective expression of the state of contemporary visual language and spatial communication from the perspective of memetic (cultural evolutionary) development under the influence of the digital revolution, the rapid development of technologies and internet services
mediated through the lens of the emerging generation.
Bonus Level
Eva Fajčíková
Curator: Václav Janoščík
The "Bonus Level" series is based on the book Phantasmal Spaces by M. Fuchs, which studies games from the point of view of topography and generally deals with the environment in video games. Describes places that are repeated in games such as cliff, portal, cave, etc. and calls them landscape archetypes of video games. The series presents the levels of a fictional "platformer" or "jumper game", where the player passes through different worlds and collects points and lives. At the MEDIUM gallery, Fajčíková will present the two worlds of one game created so far, namely "Paradise", which represents a forest, and "Avalon", which represents a ruin, directly inspired by the spatial archetypes of video games described in Mathias Fuchs's book "Phantasmal spaces".
UGLY BRNO WORLD TOUR: II
Artists: Risto Ilič, Jakub Polách, Johannes Christian Tröstler
Curator: Barbora Ilič
The project is a continuation of the earlier Ugly Brno exhibition, which took place in New York in 2019. Within it, the collective thematized the issue of gentrification and visual smog in Brno, which it removed from the usual local perspective and presented in a new context. We follow this exhibition with a project that critically reacts to the post-lockdown transformation of the city and questions the role of the graphic designer in this process, which is dealt with by Jakub Polách.
Petržalská plaváreň
Filip Bielek
The exhibition Petržalská plaváreň purposefully erodes the stereotyped view of Petržalka as just a socialist rabbit hole and shows it as a vibrant and dynamically developing part of the city, which is changing before our eyes without much notice from the lay and professional public. A diverse mix of new buildings or even whole new streets shows us a completely different face of Petržalka than we are used to. The undeveloped areas of Petržalka have become a kind of playground for investors, where they project their visions and personal taste, often without assessment by the professional public or directly by the residents of the affected locations. In his work, Bielek thematizes these locations in the Bratislava city district.
Bread Holes
Katarína Poliačiková
Curator: Zuzana Jakalová
The exhibition project Bread Holes presents a constellation of newer and older works by Katarína Poliačiková in the curatorial concept of Zuzana Jakalová. At its center are the questions: how to tell stories so that we want to listen to them? How is it possible to (re)create a great history from intimate narratives? The authors met for the first time by the "Fragile Archive" project, with which City Gallery Bratislava celebrated the 60th anniversary of its establishment. The exhibition for the MEDIUM Gallery represents a desire to further develop this dialogue about hidden/intimate histories.
Cesta mesta
Zorka Lednárová
Curator: Jana Babušiaková
The project "Cesta mesta" points out the problem of barrier-free-barrier city. The works open up not only the position of individual overcoming the obstacles, but also a broader social discussion about urban public space, therefore Lednárová does not keep it only for herself, but allows the public to enter it, which she encourages to empathize with their surroundings – insurmountable obstacles for some are often just small inconveniences for others, sometimes not even that. In addition to artistic outputs, such as painting, video, photography, object-installation, an important point of the project are activist interventions in public space, as well as the accompanying program and the educational aspect of the project.
Archivist of Hybrids
Ľudmila Machová
Curator: Jana Babušiaková
Ľudmila Machová's previous work, whether it was paintings or objects, explored the boundaries of our environment and materials that were directly created or modified by humans. In her latest works, she pushes the boundaries between the genres used as well as the boundary between natural and unnatural – her works retain the distinct characteristics of painting, but combine them with natural, site-specific materials. They thus become a kind of hybrid, a living organism that resigns itself to differences of material nature.
Dana Tomečková
Dana Tomečková's solo exhibition will present the results of her residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. The author is interested in the permanence and inevitability of the transformation of matter over time and the internal processes of materials, objects, us. The author mainly works with loose materials, creates procedural installations and performative situations tailored to different spaces.
MediaLab*
Ján Šicko a Roman Mackovič – pedagogues at the MediaLab and co-authors of the exhibition responsible for the selection of works and its spatial solution
The exhibition will be mapping the previous activities of the MediaLab* laboratory and it will consist of a selection of the best that was created at the MediaLab studio. The scope is quite broad: animation, game projects, video, sound projects, digital applications, video clips, interactive objects and installations, experimental projects. This offers a wide range of works that can be exhibited, from digital ones with output on a screen or projection to tangible three-dimensional works.
The exhibition will be part of a whole, which will form the new MediaLab online web archive*, mapping student projects and also the accompanying printed catalog.
Spaces of energy – energy of spaces
Artists: NOVUM Foundation (selection of awarded finalists)
Curators: Miroslav Haľák – Adrián Kobetič
Exhibition concept: Ivan Gerát – Marian Zervan
The exhibition, which is a continuation of the series of exhibitions of the award-winning authors of the NOVUM Foundation, connected with the conference, continues their internal logic and focuses with the critical reflection of selected current problems of the artistic activities in their historical context. It follows and explores the complicated relationships of cooperation, inspirations, tensions and confrontations between spaces and energies.
Joyful Flame, vol. 2
Ezra Šimek
Joyful Flame, vol. 2 is a working title for a continuation of the eponymous film trilogy and a series of exhibition following the adventures and a self-exploratory journey of a nameless Trans*Vagabond. All individual parts of the work follow an educational, yet poetically narrated interpretation of a gradual revelation of one’s gender identity and a mental and physical transition into one’s true self. Vol. 2 elaborates further on physical manifestations of the work, presenting a new series of drawings, ready made objects and installation elements, framing and expanding spatial presence of otherwise mostly moving-image based work. Besides the film and physical presence, Vol. 2 also offers a series of performances by the artist & their fellow cowbois.
Martin Toldy
The exhibition takes the audience through the three months that Martin Toldy spent in Paris, in residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts. Using the language of photo-video, drawings and installations, he continuously creates an informal diary, recording significant events in Slovak or world history. For him, the present pathos or nostalgia is a language for expressing the post-performative component, when the performance is distributed towards the perception of the surroundings. Individual works do not initiate questions or provide answers. They are a purely artistic archive.
Analog vs. Digital
Artists: Mgr. Art. Žofia Babčanová. Prof. Štefan Klein, Mgr. Art. Peter Baumann
Curator: Mgr. Art. Žofia Babčanová
The exhibition examines the impact of analog and digital technologies on the resulting design. Žofia Babčanová presents the last one, focused on intuitive drawing in virtual reality. Sketching in virtual space allows the author to enter the work and propose a design using a gestural drawing of the body. Peter Baumann explores analog design processes, different materials and surfaces, and the role of the modeler in the design process. Štefan Klein will present the latest design of the locomotive.
Exhibition plan of Medium gallery for 2024:
Exploitation in the Peratic Hinterland
- Group exhibition
- Curators: Juraj Rattaj, Róbert Repka
- February 2024
Art that speaks for the animals (not in a literal sense) tries to show what a prison this world is for them, but also how precarious our future is in a time of environmental crisis. The zoo has been chosen by the curators as a setting for the application of environmental thinking, which is often aestheticized nowadays, thus leveling the issue. Their concern is not to traumatise animals in the zoo environment, but to try to traumatise us humans.
The subject of zoos resonates with a number of national and international authors.
Solo exhibition
- Juraj Ďuriš
- April 2024
The exhibition of Juraj Ďuriš is a partial outcome of his residency supported by the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Cité, Paris. The author used the city of Paris as a pictorial environment in which elements of global trade and industry are embedded. Although they are far from our sight, the functioning of the world we live in is absolutely dependent on them, even if we don't want to admit it.
Author's use of painting draws the viewer's attention to an image in which thought content is unobtrusively smuggled in. This awakens reflection on the way we live our lives. The allure of this method lies in the fact that it does not express opinions and words such as ecology, which can evoke a negative attitude towards the subject and the work as a whole.
Ďuriš's aim is to reach as large an audience as possible, not to create more exclusive products for the market, and he often realises his works in public spaces. It is the quality of the workmanship that allows him to embrace a complex theme and establish a dialogue with the inhabitants of the cities where it is realised.
FACTORIES
- Maud Kotasová
- Curator: Martina Ivičič
- April 2024
The series FACTORIES is dedicated to factories and the people who worked, lived and died in them. Not all factories were just about work. They have become a symbol of impermanence and extinction and the struggle for life. Every locker is a human story, a derivative of one man's existence, his personal time capsule. Maud Kotas's work is more or less covertly narrative.
The visual language accentuates an aesthetic that is almost graphically schematic in conjunction with an aesthetic of wear and tear. Communication and authenticity are always superior to aesthetics.
Radical Protection – Case Studies
- Curator: Igor Machata
- April 2024
Radical Protection – Case Studies is a series of two or three events. The main point of the event is a lecture and discussion. Each of the lectures will present one domestic or international architectural studio and one project that the curator interprets as so-called radical conservation. The lecture is accompanied by an exhibition of photographic and/or textual documentation of the project.
4 whales in a soft sponge
- Collective exhibition
- Curator: Nika Kupyrova
- June 2024
The conceptual recipes of the avant-garde were a critique of the habits of the bourgeoisie, of mindless consumption and the cultural system based on an economy of exploitation. They attempt to reproduce the dysfunctional, the disorderly and the meaningless, the absurdity of the world. The exhibition re-inteprets the cookbooks of the avant-garde, setting them in dialogue with contemporary artistic positions. Noticing the interest of the Viennese art scene, it brings together seven artistic positions which work on the border between food and visual art.
Basic Materials
- Adam Turzo
- Curator: Tomáš Moravanský
- June 2024
The project is a fusion of organic and inanimate, durable and non-durable materials, created mainly by processing glass waste, technical material and baked goods, which is the main building block of the exhibition's architecture itself. The critical starting point is the idea of an individual who undergoes a transgression, manifested by the accumulation of
material residues and their transformation into artefacts of an imaginary collectible character, fetishes or souvenirs representing the basic conditions of life.
Fictive Bloodlines
- Artists: Alexandra Barth, Ivana Mojšová, Uľjana Zmetáková
- Curator: Matúš Novosad
- August/September 2024
With Fictive Bloodlines, the exhibition aims to show the visual affinities of the emerging without being directly influenced by the gaze or intimate knowledge of the other's work.
It should bring to mind the wonder of how two similar things can come into being in one place without touching, until a certain gravitational moment that is the exhibition here. It allows us to think back in the artists' individual lines about which principles of the paintings created the proximity.
Exploring Randomness
- Kristina Rypáková
- Curator: Monika Mitašová
- August/September 2024
The exhibition Exploring Randomness presents the artist's outputs created during her Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design - Harvard University in Boston, USA (2023). The research project responds to the author's fascination with randomness and stochastic phenomena, which she explores as creative phenomena in the process of architectural design. The phenomena studied and the digital artefacts created were tested through Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques.
Contemporary jewelry as a communication tool
- Šperk stret
- Artists: students from jewelry studios in Bratislava, Pilsen, Jablonec n.N. and Budapest
- curatorial team: K. Španihelová, M. Verner, L. Šikolová, F. Vági
- October 2024
The field of contemporary jewelry is a self-reflexive practice, which means that it focuses on the reflection of the conditions in which it takes place. Contemporary authors generally work in a conscious relationship, often critical, to the history of practice in the wider field of jewelry. This distinguishes contemporary jewelry from other forms of body adornment, and the practices of its makers focus primarily on the relationship to the body and wearability in the context of the communicative qualities of jewelry.
Contemporary jewelry has the power to draw the viewer in and engage them in a dialogue between the object and its wearer and the audience through its intimate placement on the body. As a rule, they are not perceived as decorative objects, they have the ability to be a non-verbal vehicle for critical social commentary, they are a thought-provoking tool, they have the ability to preserve and convey memory or emotion.
The project will present the work of four jewelry studios in a Central European context, the work of contemporary students and the results of their creative education aimed at developing the ability of critical thinking and artistic expression in the given medium: the s+m+l_xl Metal and Jewelry Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (pedagogue K. Španihelová), the Metal and Jewelry studio at the Institute of Art and Design at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (ped. M. Verner), the Glass and Jewelry studio in Jablonec nad Nisou - Department of Design at the Technical University of Liberec (ped. L. Šikolová) and the Jewelry and Metal Design MA, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest (ped. F. Vági).
In October 2024, the exhibition will be one of the side events of the thematically related 12th International Conference of Contemporary Jewelry 2024, the creation of which is closely linked to the past and present activities of the s+m+l_xl Metal and Jewelry Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava.
Nothing But a Curtain
- Zula Rabikowska
- Curator: Andrea Vrtelová
- November 2024
The project Nothing But a Curtain explores gender identity and the meaning of contemporary womanhood and femininity in the former Eastern Bloc countries, including Slovakia. Zula Rabikowska photographed and interviewed 104 people (focused on women, non-binary, genderfluid, and transgender people) about their personal experiences of gender and womanhood. The project aimed to challenge the way women and non-binary persons from Central and Eastern Europe are presented and to contribute to the debate on boundaries and gender identity in the 21st century.
PHO BO Award
- Pop-up exhibition associated with the announcement of the winners of the international photography book competition
- Curatorial team: Lenka L. Lukačovičová, Juraj Blaško
- November 2024
Presentation of the international photography competition PHO BO Award, which will gather student photography books from the V4 countries. In the Medium Gallery there will be an award ceremony and a short presentation and pop-up exhibition of the best selected photography books. Three categories of photography books will be selected by an expert jury.
The line - a line
- Gréta Mária Srnová
- November 2024
The exhibition is conceived as a free research of drawing as a record of what is seen, or as a plein air drawing, and then its overlaps into various artistic or personal positions: drawing, painting, photography, text. The exhibition will present not only the resulting whole, but also the process through an open studio format. The presentation will be a mapping of a three-month residency facilitated by the Academy of Fine Arts and Desing in Cité, Paris. It is an unfinished process that will hint at the artist's thought tendencies in her work with a certain expectation of maturation.