Opening: June 13th 2025, 10:00 a.m.
Curators: Štefánia Ďuricová, Miroslav Kleban
Space A+B, Hlavná 27, Košice
The new permanent exhibition at the East Slovak Gallery is the culmination of more that seventy years of systematic acquisitional and academic activity by the institution. As a vibrant cultural space, we aim to reflect contemporary social challenges while also highlighting our cultural heritage in order to open up new dialogues on identity, spirituality and the shared history of Central Europe.
The conceptual core of the exhibition is the remarkable 1925 theatre play titled Comedy of the Spirit written by Anton Jususch – painter, visionary and prominent figure in the Košice Modernist movement. The three-act play, originally written in Hungarian, was never staged; Tido J. Gašpar, the Theatre’s dramaturge at the time, stated that the performance was disallowed on nationalistic grounds. Jasusch’s literary work - profound, symbolic, often surrealistic in its visionary qualities – serves as a unique key for understanding his paintings.
As a result, the Comedy of the Spirit exhibition does not take the form of a conventional, art historical chronological framework, but is instead curatorially conceived as a thematic and visual interpretation of Jasusch’s theatrical play, a dramatic-spiritual journey divided into ten thematic sections. Each part peels back another layer of Jasusch’s philosophy: his spiritual world, his cosmic visions, his social criticism and intimate identity, even encompassing apocalyptic collapse and spiritual rebirth.
The exhibition draws exclusively on works from the collection of the East Slovak Gallery, and a dominant role is played here by the series of large-scale symbolic compositions which address the fundamental themes of human existence – birth, life, death, mysticism and transformation. Janusch’s paintings serve as a musical score in artistic form, where expressive gestures and philosophical content foster a unique space between the fields of art and literature.
The Comedy of the Spirit invites us to reflect not only on the history of fine art but also on the very direction of the society in which we live. Combined with Jasusch’s dramatic framework, the exhibited works pose questions which remain relevant even a century later: where do we draw the line between progress and decline? How do crises influence an individual’s spiritual and moral fibre? What is the role of art in times of social tension?
The exhibition suggests that art is not merely an aesthetic experience but also a critical means of understanding with the ability to voice that which society often attempts to suppress: silence, uncertainty and fragility, but also hope. Jasusch’s visionary perspective reminds us that a culture which loses its capacity for self-reflection is at risk of stagnation and decline.
In the context of our contemporary reality of environmental crises, increasing polarization and the search for identity, the Comedy of the Spirit provides a space in which we can consider the values on which we wish to build our future. The exhibition challenges us to perceive our cultural heritage not as a static legacy of the past but as a vibrant foundation for creative and principled dialogues about the future direction of our society.
The architectural arrangement of the permanent exhibition was designed by the Prague-based studio COSMO. The conceptual basis of the arrangement is an exploration of the current tendency towards self-destruction within the context of the trilogy of paintings by Anton Jususch. The concept is explored across three speculative categories: sin – extinction – rebirth. This fundamental principle is also reflected in the materials used in the modular system; produced from recycled plastic; the material itself has thus been reborn, thereby drawing attention to the circular nature of life and objects.
The realisation of the permanent exhibition was supported by public funds from the Slovak Arts Council, and the exhibition spaces were reconstructed with the financial support of the Košice Self-Governing Region.
