Don’t miss the accompanying programme to the current exhibition Iván Argote: Radical Tenderness by artist Maja Štefančíková. The migratory performative event will take place on Thursday, July 31 from 4 pm to approximately 8 pm. The start is at Galerie Rudolfinum and admission is free.
The characteristic medium of Slovak artist Maja Štefančíková is processual performative action. She is interested in social phenomena, such as work, institutions or the world of art; examining and commenting on aesthetic experience, perception and memory. In the long term, she deals with the issues of perception of the audience, which she tests by inconspicuous, often invisible, empty, silent or otherwise subversive inputs, trying to activate the hidden levels of perception.
In the city centre, the history of which is closely tied with the political representation of the changing social establishments, the artist will enact a moving performative event with a group of artists who will chisel fleeting melodic sculptural groups. Tools made for working stone will become musical instruments, each stroke a compositional element. But rather than a concert the result will be an untouchable sound “sculpture” that will complement the public space from a different perspective and will “resound” issues related with the approach to traditional sculpting.
Statues in bronze and stone seem to act as solid and unchangeable forms. However, the ancient damnatio memoriae clearly tells us that even the most stable material does not guarantee their eternal being. Statues and memorials are therefore more brittle than it may seem. The performative action responds to the contextual transformations of the public space consisting in “tearing down idols” usually due to political upheavals, but it also works with collective and individual memory of an informed viewer, someone well-versed in history and a random passer-by.
The artist thematicises what we usually do not perceive when looking at a sculpted object. She accentuates the process of its origin – modelling and transforming the material and the dynamics of the creator’s body during work, just like the sound made when stone is being worked. In this way she deflects attention from a sculpture as a non-living, rigid and silent mass towards live action – a performative act. Just as this sound sculpture suddenly emerges, so it also disappears without leaving a physical trace.
Musical Cooperation: Petra Torkošová
Special thanks: Juraj Gavula, Matej Gavula, Petra Noskaiová
Maja Štefančíková is a visual artist and performer who is dedicated to creating temporary performative situations, primarily through movement and voice. Her work explores the body as a network of relations in space and time – her performative situations combine contemplation with playfulness. She conceives of them as continuous, long-term actions with fixed choreography that remain open to stimuli and interactions from the surrounding environment. She is currently working at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, where she directs the Laboratórium performancie (Laboratory of Performance).
We would like to thank Internal Grant System of Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava for its support.
More information about the event can be found on the Galerie Rudolfinum website.
Galerie Rudolfinum