Opening: 16. 2. 2023
Exhibition duration: 17. 2. 2023 – 14. 5. 2023
Space B, Hlavná 27, Košice
A series of drawings, objects and situations opens up the possibilities of romanticism, mythology and even politics, which are based on the predispositions of inanimate entities with their immanent value, which the author has chosen to respect. The artist's latest project follows the recent turn towards material sculptural practices and the ontology of objects. This is conceived against the backdrop of a long-standing interest in the themes of abuse of power and military conflict. The constant tension between objects and subjects, or the exchange of their positions, has a radical outcome in military technologies that perceive people only as objects to be targeted. Subverting the optics of cultural anthropology, the author stages a range of objects, from instruments for body stimulation to the ergonomic equipment of weapon systems. In this situation, the living and the human recede into the background, organic residues are subjected to the dictates of products, and these are emancipated as the main entities of a “story” in which new ethnographic systems and relations are created. This odyssey opens up references from both parts of the timeline – from archaic mythology to the eminently real context of today in the form of the author's performative gesture in the former Javorina military zone.
Radovan Čerevka (1980, Košice) graduated from the Department of Fine Arts and Intermedia of the Technical University in Košice, Studio of 3D Free Creativity of prof. Juraj Bartusz. He received his doctoral degree at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, where he was later habilitated as an associate professor. Currently, he runs a studio at the Department of Fine Arts and Intermedia at the Technical University in Košice. So far he has had more than 20 solo exhibitions in Slovakia and abroad.
His work is characterised by a clearly recognisable visual language, working with knowledge of media information reporting from the areas of war conflicts, ecological disasters, authoritarian or power politics. Čerevka reflects the crucial moments of global politics and its consequences through spatial realisations, dioramas, oversized models, installations as well as drawings and videos.
The project was supported by a grant from the Slovak Arts Council.
