Press talk
Stano Filko
A Retrospective
Press
With this retrospective of the work of Slovak artist Stano Filko, which has long been in preparation, the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark takes a fresh look at a sustainably influential and utopian body of work. With generous loans from the Slovak National Gallery and the Linea Collection, Bratislava, this exhibition highlights the significance of this outstanding artistic position and its progressive design for society for today’s less visionary times.
Filko’s complex oeuvre refers to the Fluxus, Nouveau Realisme, Dada, and Pop Art movements, while its independent multiperspectival development remains relevant today. In the early 1960s, Filko began to design installations, pneumatic sculptures, and utopian architectures that reflected his growing interest in cosmology and metaphysics. This was also seen in his happenings and actions. Always fascinated by anti-art, nihilism, and iconoclasm, Filko created several interactive environments based on his ideas of an open concept of media and interdisciplinarity.
To the last, Filko accompanied his artworks with texts, which he was always testing and rewriting. Notwithstanding all the creativity, this was a structured approach that made it possible for the artist to develop his projects simultaneously as production and reflection, as well as facilitating a better understanding of his originally conceptual approach. Thus Filko pursued a holistic way of working that places art and life together as one so as to work toward an alternative view of reality by means of the unbounded work of art.
This project is accompanied by a program of events and education and a publication, with the participation of Lucia Gregorová Stach, Patricia Grzonka, Christian Höller, Mira Keratová, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Boris Ondreička, Jan Verwoert/Søren Grammel, and others.
Artists
Participating artists
Stano Filko
The artworks of Stano Filko (*1937 Velka Hradna, †2015 in Bratislava) have been on show in renowned institutions such as the Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava; the Kunstmuseum Basel; Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz; Kunsthalle Bratislava; Zacheta – National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; National Museum, Krakow; Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples; ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe; Ludwig Múzeum, Budapest; Garage Project Space, Moscow; The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; P.S.1, New York; MACBA, Barcelona; Centre Pompidou, Paris; mumok, Wien; Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; státna galléria (State Gallery), Banská Bystrica; Musée d‘Art Moderne, Paris; and Moravská galerie, Brno. His work attracted international attention amongst others at the 11. Biennale de Lyon, the Prague Biennale 3, the 51. Biennale di Venezia, the Documenta 7 in Kassel and the EXPO in Osaka. Gallery Emanuel Layr presented the artist at Frieze Art Fair London and at Art Basel.