ABYSSES - APART, Boris Ondreička, Ján Ballx, Jozef Mrva ml.

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” – Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (1886), Chapter IV. Apophthegms and Interludes, §146).

 

 

We started preparing this exhibition during the pandemic, to initiate it in March 2021, thinking about the new abysses that emerged with the pandemic and the old ones that deepened.

In a situation where people are fleeing from the war and aggression of Russia, and when our forces are currently directed to help them, we considered the opening to be absurd. However, we still believe in the power of art and its importance across his spectrum, so we want this opening to be a meeting place for those who need it in these difficult times.

There will be leaflets with information on how you can help Ukraine (League for Human Rights; Who will help Ukraine), but it will also be a meeting for those who want to be together, cry together, bridge the abysses together.

 Abysses explores the phenomenon of unfathomableness, infinite-depth, fatal division, distance, trauma, disagreement, diversity, and bridging possibilities, as well as the secrets of out of sight, fear of falling, and curiosity as a progressive impulse to knowledge and creativity. Abysses appear both in the material world and in communication. The abyss concerns personal (social and psychological), civilization / cultural (myth, use of one metaphor in various disciplines and its transformations…), and ecological issues.

Abysses presents live activities and a visual-text installation by the hosting APART Collective in collaboration with Jozef Mrva, a painting installation and texts by psychiatrist and artist Ján Ballx in the center, and projections with the spoken word and sounds of curator and artist Boris Ondreička in the A Promise of Kneropy art space. Interestingly, his Abyss premiered in 2015 at School of Kyiv biennale as a diagram and lecture.

The abysses are an oscillation between individual and collective projects, which will be matched by the architectural division-sharing of the time-space of A Promise of Kneropy. The aspects of fellowship and belonging are also explored.

The gallery program is supported using public funding of Slovak Arts Council