February 28, 2024, 3 pm
Many thanks to Marija Petrovic introducing our participants to the concept, program & history of Kunstverein Ost e.V. – KVOST and guiding us through the group exhibition Hours Against the Clock by Jan Durina, Alena Kotzmannová, Milan Mazúr curated by Světlana Malinová. The visit is part of the BAI Studio Program | Berlin Artist Residency, Art School, Arts Incubator, and Live Online Courses & Classes.
Exhibition Date: February 08 – April 13, 2024
Location: KVOST
Opening Hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 2 – 6 pm
Address: Leipziger Strasse 47 / Jerusalemer Strasse, 10117 Berlin
“The exhibition Hours Against the Clock offers a glimpse into the minds of two generations of Czech and Slovak artists and reflects a shared Czechoslovak historical experience that spills over into the present. Collective traumas and family memories are written into the visual images.
Alena Kotzmannová presents a cross-section of her work, anchored in the photographic series Cyclone (2004-2005). In the series, the artist works with couples that at first glance appear almost identical, but were taken at different intervals from the same location. Cyclone unsettles the viewer with regard to the sequence of events and phenomena as well as the principle of photography itself. The work by artist Jan Durina, I Was Going To Be a Great Person (2023), is displayed in the center of the exhibition space. It is accompanied by a previously unseen photograph from the Horal (2017) series. Durina’s work has long spanned multiple levels of expression, with themes of mental health, sexuality and social criticism layered throughout the works. In particular, the exhibition offers glimpses into the artist’s narratives that tell us stories of the Central European region and its history. Milan Mazúr’s speculative film essay What kind of song has managed to dispel this fog? (2022) works with elements of family history and deconstructs them expressively. It teeters on the edge of genre and unsettles the viewer with the ambivalence of film language. Jan Durina (*1988 in Liptovský Hrádok, Slovakia) is an interdisciplinary artist who uses a variety of media to develop characters and the complex narratives in which they exist. Through performance, photography and sound, Durina unfolds the nuances of each narrative, addressing themes such as loneliness, loss, the boundaries between nature and the body, and the distortions of the human mind as experienced within an ever-changing gender and identity. Through this process Durina produces art works in the form of music, performance, film, and photography, seamlessly and confidently moving between exhibitionary to performance contexts. He lives and works in Prague.” (Excerpt from the press release by courtesy of KVOST)
More information on the KVOST Website.
