OPENING: 03/08, 18.00

From August, the Kunsthalle Rostock will present an exhibition with works by Danish artists from the collection. These were largely acquired as part of the biennials held in the Baltic Sea countries, Norway and Iceland between 1965 and 1989. The work of the Danish painter and graphic artist Jørgen Buch (1943–2021) receives special attention and is shown in a solo exhibition on the ground floor of the Schaudepot.

Jørgen Buch has been represented at several biennials in Rostock and, as a young artist, had a solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle. A significant part of his oeuvre is in the collection of the Kunsthalle Rostock. Throughout his life he was a critical observer of socially relevant processes. As an artist, he wanted to reflect current events artistically. Buch studied in Copenhagen in the politically turbulent 1960s and 1970s, a time in which a wide variety of artistic directions predominated. Through his participation in exhibitions in Rostock, he was finally able to study at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin-Weißensee from 1975 to 1976.

In addition to landscapes and portraits, Buch has repeatedly critically examined international news from the daily press. The result is numerous works created in a figurative, representational formal language, whose objects or represented themes have certain satirical and provocative features. His best-known works include, for example, the painting “Black & White”, in which he denounces American racism, or the series about Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship from 1973 to 1990, which resulted in numerous human rights violations. Buch’s group portrait, for example, presents Pinochet in the center, followed by his followers in the background. The composition and the chosen section of the image are reminiscent of a press photo that was published in local and international newspapers in 1973. It shows the dictator wearing dark glasses posing confidently in front of the crowd for the press. Buch transfers this snapshot, slightly modified, to the football stadium that Pinochet had converted into an internment facility. Using American photorealism, he exposes the generals as football fans in a drastic and unmistakable way.

Buch’s group portrait, for example, presents Pinochet in the center, followed by his followers in the background. The composition and the chosen section of the image are reminiscent of a press photo that was published in local and international newspapers in 1973. It shows the dictator wearing dark glasses posing confidently in front of the crowd for the press. Book transfers this snapshot, slightly modified, to the football stadium that Pinochet had converted into an internment facility. Using American photorealism, he exposes the generals as football fans in a drastic and unmistakable way.

Based on Buch’s work, historical as well as current socio-political topics can be conveyed and reflected upon. His images make you think and encourage discussion.

Further information: https://www.kunsthallerostock.de/en/ausstellungen/ausstellung/2024/jorgen-buch

OPENING: 25/07, 18.30

Admission to the opening is free by prior registration. Registration is available here.

The exhibition includes artworks by Cao Fei, Refik Anadol, Aljoscha, Anatoly Gankevich, Megumi Ohata, Wolfgang Stiller, and Anna Myronova.

The project focuses on the study of imaginary worlds, views on the coexistence of humans with artificial intelligence, expanding the horizons of synthetic biology, virtuality and reality, as well as a metaphor for the temple of the future, which is being built today and is not solely constructed by humans.

People have long turned to gardens, both real and imaginary, in search of refuge from the frenzy of reality: from the sacred space of the Garden of Eden, a stronghold of unconditional love, joy, and the quintessence of high dreams, to the philosophers’ gardens. The latters have long served as a model and a source for meticulous self-improvement and self-development, a holy place for peace and enlightenment: these associations have been preserved in the public domain for centuries.

Where will the imagination bring a human being in search of paradise? Which seeds of today will form the garden of tomorrow? Will the dark shadows of the lush beauty of the garden of dreams bring good or evil?

Rapid technological development and the evolution of artificial intelligence call into question whether the human race will retain its superiority. Moreover, the uncertainty shrouds the trajectory of human development and questions their current position, as the starting point of departure to the future. The imperfection of peoples’ physical embodiment is that regardless of being creators like God, they remain dual and helpless to find immortality. Subject to the physical perishability of the body,  they seek eternal life in artificial worlds.

However, unlike advanced artificial forms of existence, it is primordially mankind that is endowed with the ability to dream and behave in an irrational way. Through their aspirations, people invent ways to form alternative realities and act as both creators and destructors in the constant pursuit of the highest good and everlasting life.

In fantasy and imagination, new dimensions are envisaged and born. Despite the utopia of paradise and their own dual nature, mortals, by virtue of their faith, continue searching.

About the artists of the “Gardens of Dreams” project:

Cao Fei is an ultra-contemporary artist ranked among the Top 5 in China, and her popularity is constantly growing. Cao Fei’s works have been exhibited in many global cultural institutions, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris and MoMA PS1 in New York.

Refik Anadol is an internationally renowned media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of machine intelligence, winner of numerous awards and prizes. Anadol’s site-specific audio/visual performances have been exhibited at MoMA (New York), the Centre Pompidou, Pinakothek der Moderne, Art Basel. And now, for the first time in Ukraine, Anadol’s work will be presented at the M17 Contemporary Art Center. Anadol works with artificial intelligence to create “machine hallucinations”, and thus addresses the question of whether machines can dream. By harnessing vast datasets and AI algorithms, the artist sought to visualize the dreams of machines, creating ethereal landscapes that blur the line between the digital and the physical.

Aljoscha’s works are represented in a number of museum collections across the world, such as Tate Modern in London and Museum Ludwig in Cologne, among others. Recently, his artworks were showcased at TEFAF art fairs in New York and Maastricht. Installations of Aljoscha offer transcendental immersion in the artist’s translucent and delicately coloured synthetic organic forms, inviting the audience to reflect on the phylogenetic origins of human eudaimonia and upcoming bioethics. The artist’s bioism is an attempt to create art based on vitality, multiplicity and complexity.

Anatoly Gankevich is famous for creating paintings in a unique technique – imitation of mosaics, and video art. Last year, Gankevich’s solo exhibition Night in Paradise was on view at the Frédérick Mouraux Gallery in Antwerp, Belgium. The artist bases his work on observation, creating an atmosphere, combining different plans and attention to detail.

Megumi Ohata was a runner-up for the Batsford Prize 2019 and delivered an artist talk “Reimagining Human Body” at the Tate Modern (London) in 2023. Ohata developed a technique for creating one-of-a-kind artificial skin textiles, imprinted with the artist’s own skin textures, and they perceive their art as an extension of the body, blurring boundaries beyond skin, seeking the non-human form within.

Wolfgang Stiller has been an artist for almost 40 years, during which time he witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the prime of popular culture. His works can be found in prestigious museum collections around the world, from China to Germany. Wolfgang Stiller’s work balances a sometimes ambiguous form of social commentary with playfulness, dark humor, and technical virtuosity. The human head as the locus of psyche and personality is a central motif for Stiller, and recurs in wildly different and imaginative contexts across his oeuvre.

Anna Myronova has recently been appointed a corresponding member of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine. She is a lecturer at the Design Department of the Institute of Arts at Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University. As early as 2016, Anna Myronova was included in the Forbes ranking of the most successful representatives of contemporary Ukrainian art. Myronova produces paintings, graphics, art objects and photographs. In her work, the artist often explores the space of the Universe and the space inside a person – the space of memory that goes back to the beginning of time. For the Gardens of Dreams exhibition project, Anna Myronova created new works of art that reflect metaphysical landscapes and unexplored horizons.

Further information: https://m17.kiev.ua/en/exhibition/gardens-of-dreams/

OPENING: 24/07, 19.00

Intervention at the opening: Irena Tomažin

Kaskade is a modular sound installation – a series of ceramic sculptures visually addressing the form of falling water and its transparency. Although primarily denoting waterfalls, Kaskade can also represent a sequence of stages in a process, each of which triggers the next. 

The project thus presents a series of sculptures that were created in a process with a certain sequence, with each stage being consequential for the form itself, and the cracks and sounds of cracking materials affecting one another. The sound traces of cracks are traces of transient, current, and past traces of processes. In the Kaskade installation, this experience is transferred to an immersive sound installation for the gallery space.

The Kaskade series consists of six sculptural pieces of ceramics, glass and glaze, merging with one another and taking on the characteristics of form. During the heating and cooling process, glass and ceramics expand and contract at different rates, leading to cracks or even disintegration. Cracks make different sounds. The auditory experience of cracking has a unique tone and intensity that can cause feelings of discomfort and stress, or give a sense of satisfaction. The presence of different types of cracks, from barely visible hairline cracks to deep and distinct breaks, enables a profound understanding of and connecting with the work and evokes feelings of transience and fragility. In the context of the sensory experience as a whole, the way our senses interact and overlap needs to be considered. The auditory, haptic and visual elements together create a rich and multifaceted experience.

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Anamarija Dimovska graduated from the painting department of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana with a degree in restoration in 2010, and in 2017, from the applied arts department with a degree in ceramics. In 2012/2013, she studied at the glass department of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin on a study exchange. Since 2015, she has been creating studio ceramics under the artistic name Natura Morta, with a focus on experimental ceramics and useful ceramic objects.

Her inspiration for her unique, recognizable poetic pieces comes from nature. Natura Morta, literally dead nature, is a quiet moment of transition to remind us that the natural environment is a fragile organism. In search of perfect forms that reveal a nostalgic attitude to the past, the artist highlights themes of decay, failure, destruction and rebirth. Her work is based on the tradition of contemporary ceramic practice, wherein she explores the principles dictated by useful ceramics as well as elements of art ceramics. The emphasis is on colors and texture, ranging from a shiny, smooth surface to a matte extruded one, where the glaze takes on the function of form.  

Martin Bricelj Baraga is a media artist and curator. He creates interactive works and sculptures that explore spaces between the environment, nature, technology and humans – his installations and interventions are often placed in unusual urban contexts or natural environments.  His works in public spaces are included in permanent and temporary collections of the cities of Ljubljana. Geneva, Wroclaw, and St. Petersburg.

He has exhibited in many galleries and spaces worldwide: the History of Science Museum in Geneva, ICA in London, Manege in St. Petersburg, the NEMO Biennale in Paris, Sonar in Barcelona, Columbia University in New York, FACT Liverpool, Centro cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires, Kunsthaus Graz, Museums Quartier in Vienna, and ArbatFest Almaty, among others.

He has received several international awards for his works, including awards from the GLOW festival, WRO Media Art Biennale, Europrix Multimedia Award, Memefest, and Baltimore Magazine, as well as a Plečnik Medal. He is the director of the MoTA – Museum of Transitory Art, the founder of the SONICA Festival in Ljubljana, and a member of the research-oriented art collective Nonument Group.    

Co-production: Studio Natura Morta, Moderna galerija and MoTA – Museum of Transitory Art. Recording and technical execution: Igor Vuk

Further information: https://www.mg-lj.si/en/exhibitions/3982/announcing-anamarija-dimovska-martin-bricelj-baraga-kaskade/

CURATORS: Katia Anguelova & Lucrezia Cippitelli

OPENING: 26 /07, 19.00 – 21.00

Video projections in public space
Zbyněk Baladrán (Czech Republic) | Riccardo Arena (Italy) | Emre Hüner (Turkey) 

..they come to need each other in diverse, passionate, corporeal, meaningful ways.

Donna Haraway

For the second chapter or Living Together, we focused on practices of togetherness based on loose time spent with others and collective thinking as a methodology which leads to produce (or better co-produce) thoughts, which become imaginaries, which become inventive ways to observe life and improvise other possible lives, together.

Speculating is a practice which in the last decade became popular among students and scholars of humanities and arts, and spread thorough the cultural world, globally, thanks to the efforts of science philosopher and scholar Donna Haraway, who elaborated and connected a cloud of cultural practices, theoretical approaches and material ways of coexisting in her book Staying with the trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016). 

With Donna Haraway we have learned that ecological and geopolitical emergencies of our present are the consequence of how humans conceive themselves as separated entities from nature, coexisting according to a functional and extractivist approach: humans in the highest position, non-humans as depletable resources. Within this system, cultures are goods to be produced and consumed as amusement. Through her words we started to foresee the possibility of de-naturalizing the way we are called to live, learning from a network of writers, scientists, animals, ethnographers, philosophers, artists, activists.

“Becoming with”, “SF” (as science fiction, speculative fabulation, string figures, science fact), “Trouble”, “Response-ability” are few of Haraway’s words which depict possible ways out from the constraints of our present condition. They are based on practices of being together, imagining together, inventing together, speculating together. They are not mental diversions from reality: rather they are mental processes which lead to ways of reinvent ourselves in relation with many others and space we inhabit. It is a narration of possibilities which emerge from spending time together, connecting on an intuitive level, sharing words, inventing new words, explaining how they could become realities: wordling.

Speculation is therefore a practice of togetherness which leads and demands us to be present, be together, observe elements which surround us and imagine – through them – outer worlds. It is not a passive practice: on the contrary it is an activation, where cultural forms are engaged not as good to be consumed, but rather as elements that we can actively bridge and learn from, because they can lead us to unexpected spaces and states of mind.

Arena’s complex installation Hyphae is part of a broader ecosystem of research and formalization that began in 2017 with field researches in Iran, Armenia, and Ethiopia, crystallized into a metaphysical poem divided into the 21 chapter’s book LuDD! – Topography of Light (2019-2021). A wide spectrum of different media and expressive languages dialogue one with the other: the video introduces part of this iconographic materials, edited and animated so to loose any linear connotation of narration. In The Commodity dialogue, Baladrán explores the commodified nature of artworks, questioning its meaning and relationship with economy in a film which becomes a metalinguistic exploration on the commodified character of images, lost in an indistinguishable flood of data. With [ELEKTROİZOLASYON], Hüner operates on the borderline between fiction, performance documentation and documentary: sequences where actors perform multiple characters of a script, improvise or interact with real life situations and people, moving across locations such as factories, shipyards, junkyards, mannequin shops, electronics and car repair shops, the ruins surrounding the city of Istanbul and the landscapes where industrial contamination, vegetation and geological formations are interwoven.

Living Together is a program of artistic research and artistic production curated by Katja Anguelova and Lucrezia Cipitelli in the context of the SUPERPOSITIONS THREE exhibition series initiated by the Institute of Contemporary Art in Sofia (ICA-Sofia).

Further information: https://ica-sofia.org/en/ica-gallery/exhibitions/item/560:superpositions-three-living-together-projections-chapter-speculating

EP. 53 – a conversation with Krystyna Kacpura – President of the Polish women’s rights foundation FEDERA.

The Foundation for Women and Family Planning FEDERA is a non-governmental organization fighting for reproductive health and rights, established in Poland in 1991.

On the podcast, you will learn about the history of the Foundation and its current projects and actions in light of Poland’s regressive politics over the past decade. Krystyna Kacupra describes in detail the changes in Polish abortion law from communist times to 1993, 2022, and today. 

Listen here: https://linktr.ee/kitchenconversations 

More about the project: https://patrycjarozwora.com/Kitchen-Conversations

Solomiya Magazine pop-up exhibition and artist talk The World of Alex Mashtaler will take place on September 8 as part of the program of the Independent Publishing Festival Indiecon 2024 – This is not about form, happening between September 6 – 8 at Oberhafen, Hamburg.

On the walls of the Oberhafen, Solomiya is showing a selection of works made in Ukraine between 2021 and 2023 by the Kyiv-born photographer Alex Mashtaler, that are featured in the magazine’s current issue. In the captivating world through Alex’s lens, a kaleidoscope of subjects unfolds, each narrating a unique story, and transforming public spaces and intimate relationships into a photographic world close to everyone’s heart. The pop-up-exhibition will be accompanied by an artist talk with Solomiya-Editor Ivanna Kozachenko and Alex Mashtaler.

Solomiya Magazine is a platform for both emerging and established Ukrainian creatives, using a wide range of forms of expression from visual arts to text that entail personal experiences, emotional observations and intellectual discourses. Solomiya offers its readers profound, diverse and subjective perspectives on current realities and complex social issues in Ukraine – and beyond.

Further information about the event: https://www.indiecon-festival.com/events/the-world-of-alex-mashtaler

Solomiya Magazine: https://www.solomiyamag.com/issue/3

How does the Network, through algorithms and filters, shape our bodies and what impact does it have on the user’s inner life? The film program Click, Post, Play, and the accompanying artist talk, which we will host on July 20 at 8 PM on the ground floor of MMCA, in cooperation with curator Elena Apostolovski, addresses exactly this burning topic contemporary topic – the ubiquity of the screen in our lives.

Elena Apostolovski is an independent curator, writer, and educator. She seeks to question the relationship between social reality, artwork, and the audience while affirming experiencing art as the physical experience of the body in space shared with other people. Her practice focuses on exploring interpersonal relationships in physical and digital reality shaped by dominant ideologies, aiming to find strategies that contribute to strengthening the connection within the community and disrupting conventions. Curiosity leads her to frequent collaborations with individuals and associations from the social and technical sciences, dance and performance. She works as a program coordinator and agent in an artist-run space and community platform the Instrument Inventors Initiative in the Hague.

Dora Brkarić, after graduating in contemporary dance from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, continues her studies in choreography at TEAK (Helsinki) and SNDO (Amsterdam). She works as a performer for Matej Kejžar, Simone Aughterloney, Flavia Pinheiro, Mehdi Farajpour and many others. Her practice arises at the intersection of digital and physical space, including performance, video works, installations in gallery spaces and theater.

Carmen de la Roca is a lens-based artist researching human behavior and the social makeup we apply in relation to new media. Her work combines identity, technology, empowerment and the role of new media, but also the essential pursuit of communication, spirituality, and connection that most humans are in search of. She researches and explores experiences through fictional characters as a proxy to hers and society’s dilemmas. The characters live through contemporary narratives as they discover how to utilize the content they create in this attention economy. Roca Igual graduated from the Royal Academy of Art The Hague in 2020. Her work was officially selected for the #AmLatino Film Festival and was nominated for the Young Talent Award during Dutch Design Week. She has assisted artists and filmmakers Amalia Ulman and Pauline Curnier Jardin, and her work was shown before in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Budapest, and Rijeka.

Helena Roig Prats is a visual artist with a photo documentary background based between the Netherlands and her home country Spain. Her working process is always driven by collaboration and community-building processes, and often points out the perverse relationship between medium and power. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, while cursing their studies in photography at the Royal Academy of Arts The Hague, her artistic practice has been focused on dissecting the idea of digital intimacy and the ways how its narratives circulate among millennials. Her storytelling is based on humor, randomness and radical honesty. She is a part of the artist at the artist-run space Trixie in the city of Den Haag(NL) and a cultural project called La Volta in Girona (SP). She has presented her work in exhibitions, screenings and performances at The Grey Space in the Middle (The Hague), Espai nyamnyam (Mieres), Art festival La Bianyal (Olot), Contemporary art center Bòlit (Girona), Impakt Festival (Utrecht), DE BOUWPUT (Amsterdam), Berlin Film Porn Festival, Weimar Queer film Festival, STIFF Galerija SKC (Rijeka), International Women’s* Theatre Festival (Frankfurt), Brussels and Vienna Porn film festival, Hangar (Barcelona), Hotel Mokum (Amsterdam), Ars Electronica (Linz), XXL Dreams at Laak Club (Den Haag) and Filmhuis Den Haag.

After the screening program in Rijeka, the artists Dora Brkarić, Carmen Roca Igual, and Helena Roig Prats will present their works on the exhibition held in the Novo Gallery in Pula, which will open on Thursday, July 25, 2024, at 8 PM. Titled Meanwhile, in the Glossy Interface, the exhibition looks into the parallel stories of our everyday life, collecting the perspectives of various online residents. Curated by Elena Apostolovski and hosted by the association METAMEDIJ from Pula, the exhibition will last until August 20, 2024.

Further information: https://mmsu.hr/en/event/click-post-play/

OPENING: 02/08/2024, 18.00

Curator: Sylwia Szymaniak, exhibition coordination: Ewa Chacianowska

August 3, 2024 (Saturday), 12:00 Curator guided tour

The exhibition “Eternal Flame” by Hubert Czerepok focuses on the symbolism that creates our national identity. The artist asks questions about whether symbols must be related to a specific place, specific events and people – or whether they can constitute value/energy enabling the constitution of a national community outside the geopolitical context. In the works prepared for the exhibition, the artist will attempt to explore how the spirit can be a vehicle for the state. Is national identity able to endure and develop without the physical presence of the country, without the material presence of objects of worship and cult? How did symbols of tradition and culture rooted in 19th-century emigration become for Poles the most important and inalienable part of their national identity?

The “Eternal Flame” exhibition at the Arsenał Gallery in Białystok turns to the mysterious idea of ​​Towianism, originating from the area currently located at the intersection of the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Belarus, where mutual influences and exchange between cultures have played and continue to play an important role.

The artist traces the sources of concepts that constitute our consciousness, looks for reflections of myths in today’s reality, pointing out how often we are immersed in the past in the simplest behaviors. The exhibition will also be an attempt to define the role and place of our nation in the consciousness of 19th-century and today’s Europe. The exhibition will create a multi-threaded story that began in Poland without its own borders, a story that continues to this day, forcing us to constantly redefine and analyze identity.

Hubert Czerepok is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Antwerp. He had many individual exhibitions in Poland and abroad, including: “The Beginning” at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw (2017), “History and Utopia” at the Arsenał Gallery in Białystok (2013); “Lux Aeterna” at Galeria Żak | Branicka in Berlin (2012); “Devil’s Island” at La Criée center d’art contemporain in Rennes (2009); he has also presented his works as part of numerous events and group exhibitions, including the 19th Biennial in Sydney “You Imagine What You Desire” (2014) and “Cultural Transference” at EFA Project Space / The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in New York (2012 ). Currently, he is a professor at the Academy of Art in Szczecin, where he runs the Experimental Film Studio at the Faculty of Media Art, Photography and Experimental Film.

Further information: https://galeria-arsenal.pl/wystawy/hubert-czerepok-wieczny-plomien

NINE ELEPHANTS and Galerija Galerija invite you to the final events of the summer art program on July 20 and 21.

NINE ELEPHANTS is a summer art program taking place in Sofia, Bulgaria, between July 11 and 21, 2024. Within the program artists, authors, researchers, experts and residents have been telling and sharing the city in a new and extraordinary way, using the calm of the summer weeks and transporting themselves to different neighbourhoods in the city. In the first edition of “Nine Elephants”, we have been invited to get involved in performance and momentary interventions in space, street theatre, literature between the neighbourhoods, to hear stories of those living and working in the city, to above all encourage sharing and talking about things, that excite us. Topics covered in projects are the environment, urban planning, cultural heritage and cultural history, architecture and nature, social inclusion and equal opportunities, human relationships and urban communities.

NINE ELEPHANTS – SMALL FINALE (at the Swimming Pool)

JULY 20

18:00 – 21:00 – DISCUSSION WITH KALINA ZECHEVA (REBONKERS) AND COLLEAGUES

The ReBonkers space has been through many uses – a gunpowder warehouse, the iconic alternative music club BONKERS, a concert venue, and in its neglected years, a playhouse behind the block for the kids living around. Although it enjoys a well-bred audience, building a sustainable relationship with residents in nearby neighbourhoods is a topic their team is just beginning to work on.

This is also the reason why Kalina Zhecheva (operations manager of ReBonkers) and Victoria Georgieva -MOUSE (artist) invited the residents of the area to join in the creation of a common work at the end of June. This makes ReBonkers one of the few cultural institutions that seek to create opportunities for cultural mediation and direct contact with their neighbors.

19:00 – 20:00 – WHAT ART IN THE CITY?

A tour of the “Nine Elephants” collection and a conversation about art in the city with Victoria Draganova (initiator and curator of “Nine Elephants”) and participating artists.

20:00-21:00 – UFO ELEPHANT – dance walk-flashmob: Ira Stoyanova and Andrea Dragov (dancers), Hristo Zhelev (musician).

Everyday walking down the street will turn into a dance adventure! Irina Stoyanova, Hristo Zhelev and Andrea Dragov invite us to show the city and ourselves that free self-expression in public space is a practice that is available to everyone! We will take a UFO elephant around the city – starting at 19:30 at the Swimming Pool with a dance performance and live music. Somewhere in the pool, the elephant will be waiting for us. At 20:00 we start a street flashmob – we go through the central streets, provoking the imagination of the people of Sofia. Anyone who wishes will be able to catch one balloon – a “tentacle” of the “Elephant” and being it along the streets with us. The route of the walk will be Swimming Pool – Crystal Kindergarten – National Theater – National Assembly – Largoto – Serdika.

JULY 21

19:00 – 21:00 – ROOM AT THE END OF THE WORLD, Performance by Veronika Desova

Mladost 1, European Trade Center (next to The Mall), Building C, Floor 4

The finale of “Nine elephants” will present the performanceand multimedia installation “Room at the end of the world”, where Veronika Desova (artist) and Aga Mlinčak (curator) examine our relationship with nature and the environment we live in – a choreography in the style of tableau vivant, in a mist with the aroma of forest, between notions of the corporate-sublime and banal office tasks. Using mist with the scent of forest and nature as the center of its composition, the work navigates between notions of the sublime and the banal, depicted through tableau vivant style choreography. The work examines our relationship with nature and the environment we live in.

Veronika Desova is a Varna-based multimedia artist and architect currently based in Glasgow, UK. Her work explores the inherent connection between the spaces we inhabit, our bodies, and the potent ways in which architecture and ourselves can merge through the mediums of photography, sculpture, painting, and architecture.

Veronika’s work was developed with the curatorial assistance of Aga Paulina Młjńczak, who represents the 16NSt Curatorial Collective and Gallery, Glasgow, UK. 16NSt Collective aims to challenge gender and class differences in the contemporary art sector and beyond, the rights and employment opportunities of socially marginalized and emerging cultural narratives.

Further information: https://devetslona.art/programme/

OPENING: 25/07/2024, Gallery Kostka

Curator: Noemi Purkrábková

Olbram Pavlíček’s artistic work is characterized by a long-rooted interest in the methods and tools through which the dominant political and social system shapes our bodies and minds involuntarily, and often unconsciously. The shapes of his objects refer to the estranging anonymity of industrialized products, whose possible purpose, however, remains only disturbingly suspect. They look smooth, soft and welcoming, and yet we can clearly feel the tang of danger from them. Pavlíček develops this ambivalence with detailed drawings in which humanoid beings intertwine with technological devices, cryptic symbols and unsettling fragments of post-digital reality. The rigged CRASHTEST exhibition continues his previous research into the impact of technological infrastructures on the individual, but here humanity itself is becoming more complicated and more outlined than ever.

Olbram Pavlíček is a Czech visual artist who shifts freely between sculpture, drawing and graphics. His work has been exhibited in a number of established Czech galleries (City Surfer Office, Prague; Berlin Model, Prague; PAF Gallery, Olomouc; NTK Gallery, Prague), as well as in foreign venues (Funkhouse Berlin, Berlin; HotDock Project Space, Bratislava; Werkschauhalle, Leipzig; Fotopub
Project Space, Ljubljana). He is one of the founders of the internationally active art-curatorial group Proto Gallery Systems.

Further information: https://meetfactory.cz/en/program/detail/olbram-pavlicek-rigged-crashtest