Shell Game

Curators: Lucia Gavulová & Jaro Varga
Author of the concept: Matej Gavula
Opening: 19.1. 2017, 19:00 
Exhibition duration: 19.1. – 19.2. 2017 
Artists: Ján Gašparovič, Matej Gavula, Jonáš Gruska, Daniel Grúň, Roman Ondák

A trick and game with reality – to those topics, a group exhibition of Slovak artists reacts. It toils with fiction, with the inclination to believing in something and at the same to debunk the sham, with the ability of perception and recognition of optical, spatial and audio games, visual associations. During the exhibition, the spectator becomes a part of the object installations, video projections, scanning, transmission and procedural, site-specific actions based on the principles of space, geometry, lights, and sound, both organic and chemical processes.

In the displayed project Ján Gašparovič (1981) connects to his long-term research of light wave motion as a part of the electromagnetic spectrum or heat energy in the connection with human organism. Matej Gavula (1972) presents a series of video projections from the last period of his work taking hold of optical games of spontaneous natural processes in the combination with the group of objects Éter/The Ether made out of metal, glass and acrylate, which originated in the first half of the nineties of the twentieth century (1993–1994). Jonáš Gruska (1990) creates site-specific sound installation in the gallery space, specifically the series of short compositions for three plates that was created by chaos of arisen metal mechanic structures. Explore object assumes holy status upon itself, it is subject of scientist´s platonic love... Daniel Grúň (1977) enters into the project with the recording of his own piece of literature – fictional love letters which by the means of sound-spatial loop induce the feeling of space-time continuum between two stages of a relationship. 

During the opening, the exhibition is metaphorically accompanied by the performance Sleight of Hand by Roman Ondák (1966) referring to the Shell Game based on a trick and a gained trust of those passing by. The performance and its content or the shell game itself, which at the same time represents the name of the exhibition, can be, in the figurative sense, understood also as a searching one´s belief in art itself, belief in that, which it represents and what we see in it.


Photos Legend: 
Photo 1: Roman Ondák - Sleight of Hand, 2015, performance photodocumentation
Photo 2: Matej Gavula - Éter, 2015, videoprojection
Photo 3: Jonáš Gruska - Elevator, 2016, the part of the instalation
Photo 4: Ján Gašparovič - Infernal Stone / lapis infernalis, 2013, video sculpture

FREE ENTRANCE

HR photos available here.