CT / Shell Game

Curator´s Text / MeetFactory Gallery / Shell Game  

Curators: Lucia Gavulová & Jaro VargaAuthor of the concept: Matej GavulaOpening: 19. 1. 2017, 19:00 Exhibition duration: 19. 1. – 19. 2. 2017 Artists: Ján Gašparovič, Matej Gavula, Jonáš Gruska, Daniel Grúň, Roman Ondák    

For the opening in the MeetFactory gallery, a man with gaming equipment is sitting around on the floor on a piece of cardboard and is demonstrating shell game (Roman Ondák, Sleight of Hand, 2015). Due to the illegality of the activity considered being a gamble he is on the alert for getting up and evaporating. The visitor can try to bet and guess, under which of little boxes a quickly reappearing and vanishing marble is located. A skillful trickster deprives him of the bet staunchly/reliably. The question is, where has this man, appealing to people for the game, appeared at the exhibition? Is he a part of the project or is it just a coincidence? Is it reality or illusion?  

In the space, there are objects made of metal, glass and acrylates by Matej Gavula being presented (Ether, 1993-1994), which for the very first time were put on display in 1994 in Slovak national museum in Bratislava at a group exhibition Prototype[1].  At MeetFactory these objects are supplemented by his in different ways installed video projections with the dating of their respective origin within the range of the years 2015 and 2016. In the case of the objects, a visitor is confronted with the subjective perception of energy and matter of the author and their interaction, in the embodiment into the final rendition, undermined by the medium of sculptural art. Video projections explore phenomena, processes, and events, whereas in their case what is important is their respective stories, a process of observation which to a certain degree is recorded, however, in the end, remains open.  

Daniel Grúň’s literal text/piece comes to life in the sound installation. The visitor listens to a fictional story, chronicling a man’s experience of relationship to a woman, expressed in two various, timely closely unspecified moments by means of their love letters. In an audio loop, it becomes a part of a train of thought of the protagonist. The first message beings with the poem by Edward Estlin Cummings confirming a heartfelt relationship of the author of the letter to his chosen woman and continues with private confessions, in which the spectator unwittingly also finds out about his life and the way of his functioning. Unknown by what interval Roman Razi is writing his second letter, which content is, however – although it is possible to surmise it by hints only – of a substantially discrepant character. The space-time continuum between two letters is coming true by the spectator’s presence, who by his perception spins out the phenomenological existence of the fiction as an illusion of an unfulfilled relationship of two human beings.   In Jonáš Gruska’s installation, the spectator finds himself in a “timelessness” of the activity of vibrations being created and undermined, apart from accompanying material, which is a plate, by air and a surrounding space. At the same he is confronted with Ján Gašparovič’s projection, in which by the means of thermal imaging camera it monitors the surface temperature of visitors. Is the just being created image a proof of their existence or just an illusion?  

An illusion is an imagination, a sensation playing on our perception, conflicting with the reality. It is concerned with existing objects of situations, though it appears in a distorted manner and we explain them inaccurately – we think about them as being different than they are. A perfect depiction of reality becomes a delusion, affirmatively responding to Plato, according to whom, all perceptible objects in our world are just illusions and artistic practice is identical to visual impression. Shell Game, or rather that which the game in the figurative meaning represents and that which it is willing to indicate against the name of the exhibition, is to a large degree based precisely on an illusion, but not in the sense of an optical illusive art, but within the meaning of searching one’s belief in art itself, in what it represents and what we see in it.  

Lucia Gavulová  
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Open daily from 1 – 8 pm dependently on evening program. Free entrance.

Contact and more info:  Šárka Maroušková → PR Manager +420 723 706 249 sarka.marouskova@meetfactory.cz      

MeetFactory is supported in 2017 by a grant from the City of Prague amounting to 10.000.000 CZK.