Was It or Not - Once Upon a Time

18.07. - 11.08.2013 | OPEN GALLERY, Baštová 343/5, 811 03 Bratislava, Slovakia

Artists: Vladimír Havlík, Marek Hlaváč, Tomáš Hodboď, František Kowolowski, František Pavúček, Tomáš Ruller, Martina Růžičková, Pavel Sterec, Milos Šejn, Martin Zet
Curated by Jana Písaříková and Tomáš Hodboď

The exhibition presents the works of authors who transform their performances into the form of a video, text, audio recording, photograph, author's book, temporary installation or sculpture. It refers to the following facts: live performance is a starting point, initial impulse for subsequent creative work with preferred recording medium; performance acts as a movable symbol that can be freely transferred to various contexts and media.
The curators strove to select works that refer to concrete performances, while at the same time suppressing this link through the form of their realization. Their double existence as a document (media transcription) of performance, and an artistic artifact of its own visual attractiveness points to the ambivalence of historiography of performance art. If we consider the exhibited works as documents of actions, we find out that there is a magical gap between the performance and the form of its recording – as if parts of information were forever lost in a passing moment. Happened, could happen, passed, was, wasn't... They are non-literal fragments that we might or might not believe – just like with fairy tales.

At the opening of the exhibition, there will be held the Sightseeing Performance. While Filing Krug makes his performance in the tourist bustle of Toronto, his action becomes comprehensible only through the interpretation of Tomáš Hodboď, staying in Bratislava. The distance between places gives space to guesses and discrepancies.

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