Photo "Retell History 2", by Maria Corejova, Bratislava 2020, Digital Drawing on comatex 1/10
The idea for this exhibition came up in the times of
lockdown, because of COVID-19. While people are not allowed to leave their
houses without essential reasons, shops, factories and companies are closed and
the world is caught up in a lockdown, in order to avoid the virus, a group of
four Slovakian artists started to remap the future.
They developed an own draft of the map of their future.
Preparing the exhibition and even simple things as transporting artworks
brought the four artists and the gallery to their limits, or lets say to the
borders of their present mapping. Borders thought by humans are coming and
going and coming and going, it seems to be an eternal circle. In the end of
April 2020 it had been simply not possible to bring artworks from Bratislava in
Slovakia to Vienna in Austria. Not the 60 km transport-way are the problem, but
crossing the border. If you come back to your home-country, you have to accept
a 2 weeks quarantine, in order to interrupt spreading the virus.
The artists and the gallery decided to accept the situation,
there is no other possibility. But they can map their future and their life
under the given conditions. The heart of
Europe is still active, the Self-Responsibility. The guidelines of these days
and of our future are, activity instead of waiting, finding solutions instead
of resignation and looking to the future. The artists found a way to bring their works
to Vienna, safe and under strictly following existing laws for hygiene. And the
gallery find a possibility to introduce the works to art-connoisseurs and
collectors. In a seldom way of spontaneous collaboration Europeans from Slovakia,
Austria, Greece, Germany and Romania contributed to enable the exhibition. So
the reality of Central Europe, and the world, in April 2020 and its
consequences became the concept for the exhibition
But honestly, the time of staying in our houses showed us that
it is possible but not necessary to run around and travel like ants. It is
possible as well to stay at home and enjoy the family as a safe haven, and to
respect and appreciate nature. This is the main idea in the works of Alena
Adamikova. She points it out like that “The animals on the heads of the
Infantas in my works represent the
protectors from the nature, nature is here for us, we humans somehow don't
notice it”. In her lyrical work, Alena Adamikova is inspired by the Baroque
paintings of great masters as Diego Velasquez. She leads us in a remapped
future of family, harmony and fairytales.
As well the map of the structures of our daily behavior is
changing. Everything is ordered with guide-lines as in the work of Maria
Corejova. Even in Isolation caused by COVID-19 the life is more systematic,
clear, clean, functional, but there is a window. The individual freedom to
create your own life. It will get more and more important. This is one of the
main thematics in the work of Maria Corejova, the understanding and meaning of
individual freedom. Remapping the future, creating another plan of the future
means nowadays to put this plan on the ground of a new understanding of
freedom: The freedom of others and our-selves.
Kristina Mesaros looks in her works behind the mystery of
time and space, in order to describe a magic phantasy world in a contemporary
and timeless symbolism. Her work is different than phantastic realism, as it
had been brought up by great Vienez masters as Ernst Fuchs. Her work is more than
the continuation of surrealism but she develops a kind of magic realism, which
is fascinating the observer, who is almost falling into the scenery. Her
artworks are the kind of works you never forget.
In the works of Olga Pastekova we are coming back to the
role of nature in our daily life. She is working and experimenting with wood.
She is engraving, cutting, painting over it, filling the wood with color,
burning the wood and integrating the black scars of nature into the expression
of her unique reminder. So black is more then a color, it becomes a memory.
All four artists are representing a generation of
self-confident and strong Central European women. In their diversity they are
unified to be ready to remap the future, their own future, the future of their
families, of nature and the future of Europe, even after the lockdown.
The exhibition is visible at Art9Teen - Viennas Private Arts Club and events, Billrothstrasse 29, Vienna-Döbling, wednesday - Sunday 16.00 - 18.00 h or by appointment www.art9teen.eu
Thomas Emmerling, curator, Cisnadioara, Michelsberg May 2020
