Exhibition duration: 10 November 2022 – 29 January 2023
Drawn exclusively from VSG’s own collection, the exhibition #DieloTyzdnaVSG (Art of the Week) is a reflection of the successful format of the social network Instagram. This format is a participatory project of engagement with the public in an online space, providing an expanded view of the work, as well as a perception and presentation of the art collection with a wider reach to a growing audience.
“This format was the first thing we introduced after Dorota hired me for Instagram strategies back in 2020. We wanted to draw in the audience, the artistic community, or people from diametrically opposed professions into the collection. To expose you all to art that we see as a universal language. We wanted to break the barrier of elitism, to show that each of us perceives art in our own way – that is the most beautiful thing about it and should be the main function of art and the VSG collection, which in fact belongs to all of us.
Over the last two years, we have let over 50 people dig through the collection in a digital form, discovering it up close through Web Umenia (https://www.webumenia.sk/). I believe it was often not easy to select only one artwork. It was great to see different levels and perspectives of art, whether in response to current events, aesthetics, or maybe someone's memory of something they've lived through. Some people asked me if what they had written was enough – if it was okay. I hope we've shown, at least a little bit with this format, that any feeling that art evokes in us is okay. This is also what gallery work, gallery visits, or the perception of art is or should be about. It evokes something completely different in each of us – joy, disgust, unease, thought, or euphoria. Something we like, something speaks to us, and something tells us nothing at all.” – Dominika Čupková, PR & Marketing Manager of the East Slovak Gallery.
The result was truly enchanting and a rich database of intimate “curatorial” interpretations or interpretations of specific artworks was created in the online space. This Instagram experiment turned out to be a specific type of work with the collection, no less interesting and accessible to the general public. The project of digitization of the art collection, therefore, fulfills its purpose, use, and importance in determining the status of the artwork and its audience perception in the 21st century. In addition, it pushes the boundaries of the psychological transformation of cultural institutions and disrupts the established stereotypes of exhibition practice.
Team of the East Slovak Gallery
Would you like to be part of the #DieloTyzdnaVSG project?
1. Select a work from the East Slovak Gallery collection on Web Umenia
2. Write a paragraph or two about why you found the work interesting.
3. In the subject line of the e-mail write I choose #DieloTyzdnaVSG
4. Send it to dominika@vsg.sk
5. Follow our Instagram @vychodoslovenska_galeria 😉
