Public House

Galleries + Theatre + Music + Artists-in-Residence = 🏭

We invite you to the next edition of Public House, the cross-genre grand finale of a busy season at MeetFactory, Smíchov’s international contemporary arts centre.

Three exhibition openings + 36 puppet heads + MMNK’s mischievous prog punk + SHAPE+ platform’s sonic alchemy + Tour around the studios of MeetFactory residents = 🏭

bottom’s just another floor | opening 
MeetFactory Gallery
artists: Total Refusal, Anne de Vries, Jakub Choma, Tomi Faison
curators: Noemi Purkrábková, Jiří Sirůček

The exhibition explores the feeling of being stuck in the tangled web of post-digital reality. While the flow of data and finance accelerates, our lived experience rarely describes the smooth narratives of progress: instead of moving towards a goal, we are trapped in place and sometimes it seems as if we are just going backwards with the next step. A "snag" is a mistake, a stuckness, an ambiguity - a rotten plank in the current state of affairs that we may be sinking through somewhere.

Jakub Hájek & František Hanousek: Honour Glands | opening
Kostka Gallery 
curator: Ján Gajdušek 

The work of the artist duo Jakub Hájek and František Hanousek is characterized by obsessively detailed processing of mainly recycled and waste materials, from which they create inspirationally multi-layered, hybridized and absurdly elaborate works, whose function is often hidden from the viewer.
Both artists also focus on their hitherto less accentuated drawing position, presenting large-scale pen drawings of fanciful industrialised maps and labyrinthine structures of the mining socio-political universe.
 

Lucie Lučanská: To feed the hand that feeds you | opening 
Zeď Gallery

MeetFactory renews the site-specific concept of the Zeď Gallery after several years. The outdoor exhibition project is moving to the courtyard behind the former glassworks building in Smíchov, which offers space for large-scale artistic interventions. The first realized project in the new location is a painting by the Prague illustrator Lucie Lučanská. In her work To feed the hand that feeds you, the artist turns to the theme of communal dining as a source of everyday care and belonging.

A. J. Nosorožec: 36 Dramatic Situations
direction, scenography, performance: Anna Gumboldt 

A performance without words, on the border between the theatre of materials, the theatre of objects and the theatre of puppets, without a known script. Everything depends on the dice game. There is only one body and 36 heads, each made of a different material. What can you do with a puppet's head? Eat it, crush it, burn it, paint it, poke it, spin it...?
The concept inspired by the paintings of Slavko Kopač and the work of the writer Georges Polti will be presented by Anna Gumboldt, a member of the PYL group, who has prepared a production for MeetFactory called The Noise of Time based on the book by Julian Barnes.
The performance is 30 minutes long and will be performed three times during the evening. Capacity 12 spectators. 

MMNK
Brno’s MMNK blend mischievous prog punk with black humour, cynicism, and melancholic self-pity. Self-dubbed ‘white trash’, the band’s raw rhythmics and angular riffs underpin razor-sharp Czech lyrics. MMNK will present their new record Legenda Ybokaj aneb jakoby naopak (Official Original Soundtrack) live at MeetFactory.

SHAPE+
The upcoming SHAPE+ residency at MeetFactory brings together three Slovak artists — Adela Mede, Adriana Morn (fka timmi), and DASA — for a collaborative acoustic performance. Rooted in Slovakia’s diverse musical landscape, the trio will explore the interplay of voice and guitar. Adela Mede’s multilingual vocal work, DASA’s powerful songwriting, and Adriana Morn's unique approach to composition will come together in an intimate acoustic setting.

Aragonese artist and engineer Santiago Latorre, whose experimental work uses digital technologies to explore the limits between performative and sonic elements, will present his expressive solo live show in the second half of the evening.  Moved by stories of injury and recovery, he designs systems that connect light and sound through movement, weaving together multiple timelines of healing. 

Guided Tour & Open Studios

The diversity and richness of contemporary art approaches will be presented during the evening in the open studios of the Artists-in-Residence programme.
The studio of František Hanousek and Jakub Hájek will reveal the process of creating their exhibition, which will open at the Kostka Gallery during the evening, and the studio of SHAPE+ musician Adela Mede will be open. Curators Tereza Havelková and Kateřina Pencová will present the work of residents from France, Romania, Israel, Poland, Ukraine, New Zealand, Spain and the USA during a guided tour.

Open Studios
Maria Nikiforaki
Maëlle Magnin-Feysot
Tash Keddy
Natalia Różycka
Eliza Trefas
František Felix
Jakub Hájek a František Hanousek
Urban Space Epics
Adela Mede (SHAPE+) 
 

Line-up
TBA 

The entry is free of charge
 

Adela Mede and Santiago Latorre are artists of the SHAPE+ platform for innovative music and interdisciplinary art, co-funded by the European Union, Pro Helvetia and the Ministry of Culture Czech Republic. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.