The Slovak artist Denisa Lehocká prepared an extensive series of organic objects, clusters of heterogeneity, specially for Kunsthalle LAB. These create what she calls a complex “spatial collage” in the location, leaving the exhibition space closed. It is a deep “window” that makes exhibition accessible to the public on the outside.
Denisa Lehocká: Untitled, 2021, photo: Adam Šakový
The artwork is a deep “window”, the author leaves the exhibition space closed so that she can develop her collage throughout the space and thus initiate a discourse on the relations between the interior and the exterior. The expressive Slovak word for a display window, “výklad”, also means a (verbal) elucidation of meaning, which is a výklad of a výklad.
"Lehocká concentrates on the transparency of the space, the ambivalence of division by a glass wall. Interior-exterior, openness-enclosure, hollowness-bulging. She exalts the fragility of the relationship of private-public, in-out (positive-negative), having regard also to the seasonal specifics of heat and cold, the psychosomatic… And last but not least, she spontaneously engages with aspects of the abstract-real. She does not, however, perceive these binaries in dissociation. It is only the language of expression that so restricts them. This is not a question of ecology, it is an answer of economy. Everything is a link in an enormous diversity." the curator of the exhibition Boris Ondreička explains the author's thinking.
Spatial collage at Kunsthalle LAB is a reflection and representation of a boundlessly deep subjectivity. More becoming than being. Lehocká's “window” is a vessel, a space, an interval, a pause, or a material substrate, all at one time. The air and the light, or tension are themselves material, after all. She does not, however, perceive subjectivity as exclusive. She sketches synapses of influences, relations, associations. Her levitating sculptures (objectifications of the inward) are above all materialisations of the so-called immaterial. The artist does not acknowledge such a polarisation, because radiation is inseparably a component of the physical source. And even feelings and thoughts are responses or products of the body.
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DENISA LEHOCKÁ (*1971, Trenčín, Czechoslovakia) lives in Bratislava, Slovakia. She studied in the Secondary School of Applied Arts and subsequently at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, both in Bratislava. Among many other venues, she has exhibited her works at the Venice and Prague Biennales; Manifesta-3 in Lyublyana (SI); Oktober Salon, Belehrad (SRB); Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (DE); Kunstverein Ulm (DE); Frankfurter Kunstverein (DE); Württembergische Kunstverein, Stuttgart (DE); Import a Haus der Kulturen der Welten (Transmediale), Berlin (DE); BAK—Basis voor Actuele Kunst, Utrecht (NL); New Museum, NYC (US); Austrian Cultural Forum, NYC (US); DUMBO Art Center, NYC (US); White Columns, NYC (US); Musée d‘art modern et contemporain, Saint-Étienne (F); Sammlung Friedrichshof, Vienna / Zurndorf (AT) (publication); MUMOK—Stiftung Ludwig Vienna (AT); Kunsthaus Graz Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz (AT); Kunstverein Eisenstadt (AT); Palazzo delle arti, Neapol (IT); Kunsthalle Basel, Bazilej (CH) and Kunsthaus Bern (CH); Futura, Praha (CZ) and Fait. Brno (CZ); National Gallery in Prague (CZ); Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava (SK) (publication); tranzit.sk, Bratislava (SK) (publication), and many more. Her works are represented in collections worldwide.
BORIS ONDREIČKA (*1969, Zlaté Moravce, Czechoslovakia) lives in Bratislava, Slovakia and he is the artistic director of Viennacontemporary (Vienna, AT).
Opening: 25. 11. 2021 | 19:00
Curator: Boris Ondreička
Duration: 26. 11. 2021 — 26. 2. 2022
Place: Kunsthalle LAB