MAREK KVETAN
Opening
OCTOBER 1, 2020
from 14.00 - 20.00
Exhibition on view till
October 23, 2020
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SODA gallery
Školská 10
821 01 Bratislava
www.sodagallery.sk
Hours: Wed - Fri 2 - 6pm
and by appointment
T +421 907 85 35 62
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MAREK KVETAN
The Physical Impossibility of Silence in the Restless Mind
Opening OCTOBER 1, 2020, from 14.00 - 20.00
SODA gallery codrially invite you to the opening of solo exhibition
MAREK KVETAN
The Physical Impossibility of Silence in the Restless Mind
Exhibition on view October 23, 2020
Marek Kvetan will present a new spatial and sound but also light installation at the exhibition. The car continues to follow the line of strictly conceptual thinking, but its design gently deviates from the "objectivity" of his work towards the tradition of interventions in the gallery space by sound and guiding the viewer to perceive the gallery as an environment in which they experience sensory experience mediated by the author.
Marek Kvetan
For more than a decade, Marek Kvetán is a significant part of Slovak art scene. Since the end of the 1990‘s, he is dedicated to making objects, installations, videos or computer prints, and he is known for his consistent conceptual gesture – creating “strong metaphors” and thought shortcuts that (mainly in his spatial work) often express a sarcastic view of the society, religion, poli- tics or media, or even question the traditional perception of the artistic disciplines (for instance painting) as such. His journey to making conceptual objects or installations that often radiate harsh truths or a sarcastic view of the theme he looks at began at the Studio of Free Creativity of the renowned Slovak sculptor Juraj Bartusz (*1933) with whom he also participated in their joint exhibition with the symptomatic title Anticommunication at the City Gallery in Bratislava (1998). The artist was probably influen- ced by Bartusz‘s inclination to the unrestrained gesture and action with sculptors‘ material like plaster, that Kvetán pretty soon and altogether innovated by the combination with materials like electrical wire or cold light. Few of his early works were pre- served due to execution in fragile materials.
Since around the time of 2000, a period that could be considered as an important miles- tone in the development of his thinking, as Kvetán stops making experimental works and begins to fully explore the possibilities of the new media. This manifests in his several cycles of computer prints based on the technique of manipulation of the electronic image with the help of deletion, compression or reorganisation of data. The theme present in these cycles is the exploration of the phenomenon of strong media images that intentionally or subli- minally get inside the mass unconscious of the society or thinking about the sceneries of the stereotypical life in the city that by using a simple intervention of this artist work as “awakening” from the customary vision of the viewer. Mainly in the creation of objects and installations that are the bearing part of his work, Marek Kvetán becomes the local representative of neo-conceptual art – one of the most common trends in the contemporary world art which fills the white cube-type galleries around the Euro-Ame- rican world of institutions. Equally, he does not stay behind the themes that are reflected internationally – he mainly concentrates on the social undertones of functioning within today‘s society, points of view through the raster of the political perception of reality or uncovering real and fictional values of different authorities of the material world. Most often with the help of a small intervention he dedicates himself to simple realizations in the public space and the reflection of the gallery and arts operati- on itself. During the last years, Kvetán inclines to minimizing the execution of his objects or installations through the reduction of the eloquence of the content of the works he makes.
