Exhibition opening: 9. 9. 2025, 18.00
Curators: Zuzana Janečková, Helena Lukášová
Exhibition period: 10. 9. 2025 – 18. 1. 2026
Space C, Hlavná 27, Košice
Veronika Lukášová’s exhibition Market Forces shows us photographs of flowers, watercolours, drawings, collages, text, various books which she has read, and also her own book, The Real Mystic Lamb, in which she relates part of her life story. We can also find a collection of found objects in all shapes and forms: the gifts of ashes and burnt pinecones from the California forest fires of 2022, a trilobite fossil, a broken heart in wood, polymetallic nodules, each 540 million-year-old, taken from the bottom of the Amundsen Sea, and a wormlike fused mass of sand created by a lightning strike. All these objects are tangible, visible artefacts, yet they are not the real basis of the exhibition. The main aspect is the courage to go on living, no matter what happens; a sense of gratefulness and the need to create, right up until the last moment. Against the backdrop of its photography, the exhibition gradually reveals its depiction of a particular group of flowers, parrot tulips, as a diagnostic of beauty in which death and the mechanisms of the market can also be discerned. Resonating through the beauty of the photography, we can see that something more than mere aesthetic or compositional sensibilities is at play. The main motivation here is, paradoxically, illness, in the case of both the tulips and the artist herself, and the various limitations and detachment from perceptive experience which it entails. Illness transforms the organism and the pace of life; it affects not only our cells but our continued existence and our position in society. It can simultaneously paralyze us and liberate, changing our perspective on everything around us.
The Market Forces series takes its name from the language of economics and draws attention to the dynamics which determine value in the capitalist system. Veronika Lukášová is captivated by parrot tulips – ornamental flowers with ornate, irregularly shaped petals with serrated edges and rich colours which are reminiscent of the exotic birds after which they are named. We now think of tulips as an example of the fragile beauty of the natural world, but they were once a symbol of luxury. During the “tulip mania” of 17th century Holland, the price of these brightly coloured and modified flowers rocketed, with some costing as much as a house. In this period, it was though that the shape and colour of tulips was determined by pigment in the soil or even by divine intervention. In fact, their appearance is a result of a mosaic virus spread by greenfly – a genetic mutation that was spread unwittingly by the humans who were so captivated by the aesthetic and commercial value of the flowers. In a sense, tulips defy the logic of natural selection; harmful genetic information in fact ensured the flowers’ survival through their capacity to fascinate mankind. Tulips symbolize the ways in which nature can be manipulated, aestheticized and commodified under the pressures of desire, status and profit.
As Veronika Lukášová shows, the cultivation of mutations in the name of beauty is not a phenomenon which is restricted to the 17th century alone. From the irradiated seeds of the atomic age to contemporary bioengineering, the search for new forms of life continues into the present day. However, mutations in flowers can bring great beauty at the cost of harmful genetic information, and this relationship is mirrored in the life of the artist herself. Veronika has lived for many years in the shadow of a rare illness which has had a fateful impact on her life.
With a distinctive bravery and a powerful will to live, the exhibition reveals the fragile mechanisms of the fundamental laws of living entities, a drama which plays out against the backdrop of a public sphere in which illness and death remain taboo subjects. The title of the exhibition, Market Forces, refers to the afore-mentioned mechanisms of capitalism which have found their way into all aspects of life, including illness and death. The artist’s own body becomes a battlefield, a gateway to a greater understanding of life and the strength to go on living, the effort to find beauty among the difficulties and suffering. The willingness to accept the situation as a reality, to confront it, the commitment to experience life in all its phases, from joy and hope to desperation and fear, from apathy and exhaustion to reconciliation and thankfulness. The decision to overcome trauma by accepting and sharing it, opening up new possibilities of living a full and meaningful life regardless of everything. The determination to make choices even when none are available to you.
The arrangement of the installation incorporates both zoomed in details and a wider overview, exploring fragility, lustre, light, shadow and photographic collages, personal themes and text. It also features the story of a one-in-a-million individual - Veronika Lukášová, an artist who has accepted her fate and who wishes to share her experiences, granting others the chance to consider their own lives from a different perspective.
The exhibition is presented through a collaboration between the East Slovak Gallery and the Botanical Garden of the University of Jozef Pavol Šafárik in Košice.
