Stano Filko – A Retrospective
Book Launch & Discussion
Talk
with Sandro Droschl, Lucia Gregorová Stach, Boris Ondreička, Mira Keratová
With Stano Filko – A Retrospective, the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark realized the first comprehensive retrospective of the Slovak universal artist last year. Filko is considered an influential utopian and polyartist, who understood art and life universally and cosmologically as a unity beyond geographical attributions of East and West. Filko was one of the most important representatives of the Central European Neo-Avant-Gardes, whose work has remained current. Early on, he designed hybrid objects and environments in order to expand them into unfamiliar terrains with his conceptual approach. This deep examination of the work, which spans more than five decades, has resulted in a book that deals with this unique œuvre from different perspectives and approaches it from various directions. Even if such an extensive project comes to an end with the present volume, the evening of its publication is to be used to reflect on the future of research into the artist and his estate, which comprises around 10,000 works. Three international experts will come to Graz for the evening, introducing their interpretation of Filko’s oeuvre through a short statement and, in a joint discussion, talk about how its exploration could be meaningfully continued and why Filko is so immensely future-oriented, especially for our present.
The currently renewed interest in the artist is also reflected in two other recent publications, White Space in White Space, Biely priestor v bielom priestore, 1973 – 1982, Stano Filko, Miloš Laky, Ján Zavarsky’ (Kontakt Collection, 2021) and Stano Filko – Universal Environment (Slovak National Gallery, 2022), which will also be shortly presented in the frame of the discussion.
Artists
Participating artists
Sandro Droschl
is founding director and curator of the institution HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark. From 2012 to 2020 he directed the Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien. Since 2000 he worked as curator, then also as director for the Kunstverein Medienturm, Graz, besides as guest curator at other institutions. He curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary art and edited over 30 publications. Droschl made a study iregulare, “Body. Media. Art,” with art (Isabelle Graw, Free Class), philosophy, journalism and medicine at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, University of Vienna and London Guildhall University.
Dr. Lucia Gregorová Stach
Lucia Gregorová Stach, Ph.D., is an art historian and curator. Since 2013, she has been the Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Collections at the Slovak National Gallery. Gregorová Stach studied art history at the University of Trnava, the Charles University in Prague, and the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, where she received her PhD in 2015. In 2015 she curated a solo exhibition of Stano Filko for Zacheta – National Art Gallery in Warsaw. With Aurel Hrabušický, she curated Filko’s solo exhibition Poetry on Space – Cosmos (2016) at the Slovak National Gallery. Gregorová Stach and Hrabušický also published Stano Filko 1 . (2018), which is a first art-historical overview of Fiko’s work in Slovak, to be followed in 2022 by a condensed English edition published by Scala, London.
Boris Ondreička
is a curator, artist, author and singer. Since 2021 Ondreička is the artistic director of the art fair viennacontemporary. Previously he was the curator at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in Vienna and director of the international art initiative tranzit.sk in Bratislava. Amongst many, he has co-curated Rare Earth, Olafur Eliasson’s Green light at TBA21, Vienna; The Question of Will at OSF, Bratislava; Empire of the Senseless at MeetFactory, Prague; and Manifesta 8, in Murcia / Cartagena. He has co-founded The Society of Július Koller. Recently he curated the solo exhibition Abyssal Seeker [Benthic Zone] at FUTURA, Prague (2021), as well as an extensive exhibition on Stano Filko at Fait Gallery in Brno, Czech Republic (2021). His artistic projects were exhibited at Bergen Assembly (2019); Manifesta 2, Luxembourg; at MoMA PS1, New York; BAK Utrecht; HKW Berlin and at various biennials in Venice (2005, with Filko et al.), Tai-Pei, Athens, Kyiv and Jakarta. He worked intensely with Filko, including curating the exhibition Up 300000 km/s (2005÷06) with Vít Havránek at Transit.sk in Bratislava.
Mira Keratová
Mira Keratová, Ph.D., is an art historian and curator in the field of modern and contemporary art at the Bratislava City Gallery, she also works as a curator for the Central Slovakian Gallery in Banská Bystrica. Keratová studied art history at the Comenius University in Bratislava and received her Ph.D. from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, where she wrote her doctoral thesis on performance art of 1960s and 1970s and its documentation. She works on the neo-avant-gardes of Eastern Europe and is a specialist in the field of action art and performative art of Czechoslovakia during the repressive period of “normalization” from 1969 – 89. Keratová taught as a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava and at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Technical University in Brno. She is the author of various texts on art and editor of publications on L’ubomír Durček (2013) and Peter Bartoš (2014, 2019). Her close collaboration with Stano Filko led to solo shows at Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples (2014); Central Slovakian Gallery, Banská Bystrica (2017); also she prepared his participation at the 11th Lyon Biennale (2011).