Denis Kozerawski & Peter Kašpar, holo- kolektív

ANNUAL RINGS ARE WIDENING…

Exhibition opening: 19. 7. 2023 / 18.00 hod. Exhibition's duration: 20. 7. - 31. 8. 2023 Exhibition's curator: Erik Vilím

 

Félix Guattari, one of the most quoted contemporary philosophers, warned as soon as in 2007 that we must shift from the fundamental notion that the Earth follows a distinct, unidirectional chronological development on a trail blazed by a single causality. Instead, we should look at the Earth’s history as being comprised of a multitude of parallel aisles that are not separated but mutually related. This call for a peculiar, non-anthropocentric imagination resonates in contemporary visual art.

 

It was a hot morning;
the droplets looked like
morning dew.
But it wasn’t dew
that was forming – the sun’s heat
was causing
mercury to emerge from the soil.

An extract from the presented artwork
The Tailings (holo- collective, 2023)

 

We are led down a similar lane of speculation by the poetic lines phrased in the installation titled Hlušiny (The Tailings) by holo- collective – mercury transpiring up to the surface of the barren soil, seeping on a sunny day to the top through the pores of the dirt which is part of the iron ore mining waste. The accumulation of metals in Nižná prevents the emergence of new life, of new micro-histories beneath and on the surface of soil in which the time has almost stopped and lost its periodicity. The protagonist, the creative agent, is not a man but a plant – a sunflower. It is the sunflower that has the ability to absorb the harmful metals that were forcefully extracted from the depths
of the Earth where they were supposed to stay. This micro-story that ends in wasteland and a heap of tailings has happened within the larger one – the story of technologization.

 

Trees are not silent.
They tell us what has happened.
Nature’s memory has engraved in them throughout the years.

An extract from the presented artwork Cambium 1492
(Denis Kozerawski & Peter Kašpar, 2022)

 

 

A voice-over guides us down a dierent lane in the video titled Kambium 1492 (Cambium 1492). Similarly to the previous piece of art, the focal point is in the time of a natural entity. More precisely, it is the time of the trees growing in harsh conditions of the forests surrounding the village of Kokošovce. The slow growth in a rocky soil full of obstacles has caused their bodies to be resilient and tough, prepared to face severe forces. Because of their qualities, the trees were used for building ships destined for distant voyages to new and unknown worlds. The wood of these precious oaks wtas also used for the ships of Christopher Columbus. The parallel history entangling the oak trees brings us to another macro-story of colonization. The two narratives unfolding quietly on the backdrop of humanity’s great history merge into a single one in an effort to re-wire the planet by technology and information systems in the former case and by seafaring in the latter. From this perspective, we can see that the past, the present and the future are not separated. Their inner threads are held together by non-human actors – the trees, the plants, the rocks… It is them, the primeval historians, telling the
stories of Earth’s eras unblemished by human activity. Denis Kozerawski and Peter Kašpar and holo- collective don’t just tell another story. They show us how deceptive and simplifying our belief in a one-way causality is.
/Erik Vilím

 

DENIS KOZERAWSKI (*1990) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (Department of Intermedia and Multimedia, Photography and New Media). He co-founded the APART art platform and civil association and is one of the co-founders and co-curators in A Promise of Kneropy gallery. Since 2015 he has been a member of the International Film Festival Bratislava jury a co-manager of Bratislava BAK Summer School. His art was presented in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, Alserkal Arts Foundation in Dubai, Galerie hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Gallery), Kunsthalle Bratislava, Kunsthalle Košice, Východoslovenská galéria (East Slovak Gallery), VUNU Gallery, HIT Gallery, Oblastní galerie Liberec (Liberec Regional Gallery), Kunsthalle TRAFO in Szczecin and Kronika CC in Bytom (Poland), Stredoslovenská galéria (Central Slovak Gallery) in Banská Bystrica , Zoya Gallery, Easttopics in Budapest, etc. As a curator, he has taken part in projects by A Promise of Kneropy, Krokus Gallery, HIT Gallery, APART STUDIO and Kunsthalle Bratislava. He is a winner of the Oskár Čepan Award.

PETER KAŠPAR (*1983) studied at the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Faculty of Mass Media Communication. He has participated in internships and art residencies at the School of Visual Arts Residency in New York (2015), The Fountainhead, Miami, FL (2016) and the School of the Art Institute, Chicago (SAIC Incentive Scholarship). His art was presented in the solo exhibitions in A promise of Kneropy gallery (Liquid Being, 2021), The Java Project, Brooklyn, NY (Sunroof, 2017), Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY (Intensions Variable, 2015), Miami, FL (Drogerie Art Projects, 2013) as well as in collective exhibitions in Galerie hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Gallery), Pragovka Gallery, Galéria Jána Koniarka in Trnava, Queens Museum, Queens, NY, Brooklyne, NY, Miami, FL, at the New York Pulse Contemporary Art Fair, Catinca Tabacaru Gallery v New Yorku, etc. He is a winner of the Oskár Čepan Award (2022). Along with being an artist, he is also a member of Sorrywecan platform and a founder of
Humanoid Research Lab studio.

HOLO- is a collective, a Holo-biont, that has risen from the fascination by nature‘s ways. Its primary interest is to explore the relationship between human and non-human agents, using mainly post-anthropocentric and speculative approaches. Using 3D scanning, it transcends from physical to digital domain, selects a fragment of natural environment and builds a new narrative around it. Combining the cutting-edge technologies with field research, it focuses our attention on fictional/future landscapes where a human no longer has to be the center point of the universe. Holo- collective was founded by Michaela Cagáňová and Kamila Valešová, both being the current members thereof.