Juraj Bartusz – Catch me, Catch me! I am Searching for the Face of Classmate Sára Rosenblum in My Memory, 1995

Juraj Bartusz – Catch me, Catch me! I am Searching for the Face of Classmate Sára Rosenblum in My Memory, 1995

Installations Marchieren Marsch! (1993) and Catch me, Catch me! I am Searching for the Face of Classmate Sára Rosenblum in My Memory (1995) were created by the artist during the 1990’s, when the expansion of the spatial media, mainly installation, characteristically prevailed. At that time, Juraj Bartusz (*1933) also produced several installations that represent the confirmation of the dominance of this medium, but also, in relation to their specific accidence and theme, they are unique models of installation. Their prototype form is anchored in Bartusz’s action art from 1970’s and 1980’s. Alongside the principle that defines the relationship between action and installation (installation is considered to be a form of concentrated action), the gesture of the artist is a very important identifier of these installations. Not as a form-making element of the work (means of its creation) present in other areas of his work but in the installations of Juraj Bartusz, gesture is rather a carrier of  meaning. It is an expression of the artist in form of an ironic or critical commentary, or it is a manifestation of resistance. In this notion, the artist’s gesture was also typical for action pieces in which he demasked and ironised nonsensical bureaucratic processes and mechanisms of the control of an individual’s privacy in a socialist society, or used them to express civil and human attitudes to social and later also ecological themes. Along with these, with their system of construction through selection of components and their provenance, the other installations from the first half of the 1990’s such as Back to Europe (1991) or Homeland (1992) declare an affinity to Arte Povera – the artist constructs the installations from found materials, he uses natural resources (textile, leather, wood, stone, lining paper, wheat) and components that are tied more closely to the private life of an individual (suitcase, clothing). The installations of this artist also dispose of postmodern narration: they connect the articulation of important contemporary subjects of and individual’s and social existence with references to past experiences. Through this, they create a certain antidote (in meaning and composition) to the later installations produced by the generation of artists of 1990’s (R. Ondák, B. Ondreička, D. Lehocká, P. Nováková-Ondreičková) with a more ‘unmoved’ neo-conceptual code.

The artist created the installation Catch Me, Catch Me! I am Searching for the Face of Classmate Sára Rosenblum in My Memory (1995) for the exhibition Dream of a Museum? (1995) at the Museum of Art in Žilina. It was preceded by a private performance of the artist, where he would draw the face of his childhood classmate Sára on a flour poured on a baking sheet from his memory, then shake the sheet in order to erase her face and start repeatedly drawing again, while the drawing process was recorded on a video that later became part of the video installation along with the baking sheets with drawings in flour. In the same year, he  presented a performance with the same name at Palmovka Synagogue in Prague. This work therefore connects an action art outcome with tangible artefact – medium of sculpture. At the beginning of the 1990’s, the system of composing – integration of performance recording/video with the body of an installation was typical for other artists as well (for example J. Želibská, M.Nitz). Along with the installation Marschieren Marsch! (1993), these pieces are unique contributions to intermedia (installation) art of the 1990’s that reflect the problematics of historical and collective memory, but most of all, they draw attention to the threat of its failure and the consequences. Both works carry a strong personal thread of the artist’s experience of the Second World War. He created the installation Marschiern Marsch! from munition boxes that he found in the gallery loft. The morphology of this work refers to a specific experience: the front line crossed Kamenín in Southern Slovakia, the village where he comes from. The cumulation of boxes/suitcases, clothing and the presence of authentic post-explosion Katyuschas (found on the yard after the war) in the installation is an image of how devastatingly the war affected the country, but most of all lives of the many people that were forced to leave their homes. The video installation Catch me, Catch me! I am Searching for the Face of Classmate Sára Rosenblum in My Memory portrays the growing impossibility/inability to recollect (and remember!) this worldwide trauma. It is a visual metaphor of forgetting portrayed in continual attempts to remember/draw the face of his Jewish classmate Sára, a playful little girl that did not come to school one day, and the artist never saw her again. Both works correspond with the concept of the current display PM II dedicated to memory – a phenomenon that strongly resonates in contemporary art. It also makes one of the paradoxes of current society present: being concerned with the past namely reflects fears of the future. This aspect of contemporary art was also prerecorded in many ways by installations of Juraj Bartusz created during the 1990’s.

Exhibition is supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council.

Ilona Németh – V4 26th ANNIVERSARY, 2017

Ilona Németh – V4 26th ANNIVERSARY, 2017

The computer animation V4 26th Anniversary shows section of a map where the states Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia are located. In 1991, these countries (Czech Republic and Slovakia as one state at the time) formed an alliance named V3 (Visegrad Three) which later became V4 after Czechoslovakia was divided. The foundation of this alliance was defined by an effort to cooperate in the process of the European integration. In 2004, after the states entered the European Union, the mission of this alliance defined itself as concentrating on the enforcement of stability and mutual cooperation in the wider region of Central Europe.
In this animation, the map of this section of Europe with the V4 countries goes through a deformation powered by the years passing on a chronoscope. It counts the years since the foundation of the alliance until the year 2026, when the V4 should celebrate the 35th anniversary of it’s existence. The deformation of the map, at the end of which the areas of the member states of V4 shrink into a small red spot resembling a drain, or more expressively, a rectum, also works reversibly – back to the imaginary start, where we can see the map in real scale. Manipulation of the map encourages us to realize the gradual diversion from solidarity, mutual understanding and from tolerating otherness – something that not only in Slovakia, but also in our surrounding countries becomes more and more apparent since as early as 1990. The animation also references the fact that although the Central European states went through the process of integration to Europe (during the 1990’s Slovakia intensively endorsed this – mainly referring to the fact that it is located right in the middle of Europe), at the same time, gravitations towards nationalism and xenophobia grow stronger. As if the states of V4 created a fairly distorted reflection of the pact about friendship and cooperation that was actually established by Charles I. of Hungary, John of Bohemia and Casimir III. the Great in Visegrad.
The animation works with the problematics of historical memory in a similar manner – it does not only point to the recent past, but also to the fact how memory and social construct may weaken or disappear altogether. It is also a merciless vision of the future: it metaphorically (through the motive of a rectum or drain) shows where the gradual elimination of solidarity, cooperation and respect in politics and society gets, and it is therefore a representation of how noble ideals disappear, become small or useless. In connection to the current events surrounding the Marrakesh Political Declaration on migration in Slovakia and the surrounding states, this animation showing the devaluation of ideas of cooperation and pro-European thought gains a more intensive current reference.
A symbolic pendant of this piece are works by the artist dedicated to the problematic of thinking in local contexts as opposed to the global reality – an aspect also present in the V4 26th Anniversary. A contribution to the project Donaumonarchy (2006), the billboard Midpoint of Europe that shows nine centres of the continent with notes on when were they designated is the artist’s ironic commentary of the states’ attempts to make/own the geographical middle of our continent, which can be considered an act of local nationalism. An example is placing a stone as a symbolic centre of Europe in Kremnické Bane in 1992, just before the founding of sovereign Slovakia, or proclamation of Nazis that based on measuring the centre in Dresden in 1900, the Third Reich is the heart of Europe with an entitlement to rule the others. Based on these motivations, the justness to dispose of the Midpoint of Europe is questionable, and contrary to the scientific methods which aren’t able to specify. Since 2009, Ilona Németh is in the process of making an open work with the same title, where she shows political and nationalist backgrounds of these attempts by commenting through creating her own signs designating the Midpoint of Europe, and placing them in her chosen locations (Rome, Brooklyn, Moscow). The line of reasoning that in the current map of the European Union, especially in the states of Central Europe, ideas of mutual cooperation and respect prevail, but at the same time, nationalist tendencies leading to gradual isolation of these states occur is a common denominator for the animation as well as for these works.

Ilona Németh (*1963) entered the art scene at the beginning of 1990’s with installations and site-specific works. The object Column (1995) is exhibited in the PMI II. The site-specific citation of a column is also a memory repository – the cumulation of hair inside refers to the privacy and identity of unknown individuals. Starting roughly during the arrival of the new millennium, a strong engagement feature has been apparent in her work. She uses her pieces to comment on current affairs in the society – they touch upon power, media manipulation, intolerance of minorities, and generally show a legible sociological dimension. The outreach of her work is strongly supported by its exhibition in the public space. Her current work is also defined by concentrating on contexts (social, historical) of the environment in which they are shown and the application of the artist’s individual experience from the given location.

Exhibition is supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council

Stano Masár – Portraits of Institutions, 2017

Stano Masár – Portraits of Institutions, 2017
(ART PLAN series – PDF)

The series of paintings is an allusion/evocation of navigation signs from prestigious art museums in Europe. The paintings stem from the author’s cycle of works dealing with the mechanisms related to presentation of visual art, where the world “behind” the art commonly seen at the exhibition becomes a primary part of this complex – although it is seemingly invisible and insignificant.

Retaining the particular fonts and graphics, the author rewrites the selected signs (e.g. Fortsetzung der Ausstellung – Exhibition continues from Hamburger Bahnhoff/Staatliche Museen in Berlin) and presents them as autonomous artworks. Furthermore, their placement in the actual access and communication areas of the Museum of Art in Žilina creates a unique, and foremost artistic navigation for the visitors of the gallery.