CHIOȘC/KIOSK exhibition
Galéria HIT, Bratislava
April 17 – May 10, 2013
April 17, 2013, 6pm – opening

Eternal Play 2012, a film by Paula DURINOVA – screening
April 17, 2013, 8pm

http://www.galeriahit.com
http://chiosc.oberliht.org

participants: AREA Chicago, Aliona BALAN and Alexandru LOZINSCHI, Nataša BODROŽIĆ, Maxim CUZMENCO, Paula DURINOVA, Michal HOLY, Tonka MALEKOVIĆ and Ion FISTICANU, Ștefan RUSU, Jarek SEDLAK, Spălătorie Theatre, Gruppo Tökmag, Vadim ȚÎGANAȘ, Vladimir US.

curator: Vladimir US

Diana AROSIO, Ivy. Plastic Garden, installation, 2010

CHIOȘC/KIOSK project articulates and expresses the need for alternative cultural infrastructure to be created in Chisinau – a city where the cultural life is still dominated by institutions established during the Soviet period – as a model for sharing, education, production and presentation of socially engaged artistic practices.

Jarek SEDLAK, Power to Flowers, installation, 2011

The exhibition presented in HIT takes form of a furnished flat, thus making reference to the FLAT SPACE – a functional replica of a socialist apartment designed by Stefan Rusu and commissioned to represent the identity of KIOSK/CHIOȘC project. In its turn, the FLAT SPACE was conceived as a response to the existing self-sufficient and closed system of cultural institutions that is continuously supported by the Moldovan state within an outdated cultural policy framework.

The other important reference that FLAT SPACE has is the phenomenon of the apartment exhibitions that took place in the mid of 70s, in bigger cities in USSR like Leningrad, Moscow or Odessa, organized by artists whose works got censored or banned from being exhibited in the official exhibition halls.

Today, many years later, FLAT SPACE can still be read as an apartment exhibition space due to the lack of support that contemporary art and culture receive from the authorities of the recently-born independent Moldovan state, thus being marginalized and reduced to an invisible phenomenon.

In the course of 2009-2012 KIOSK/CHIOȘC project supported artists, architects, curators and activists to project new functions and sometimes add a different significance to the inherited social (in the past controlled by the Soviet state) space, by extending the limits of what could become later a public space and by inviting new actors to step in, thus opening the process of city planning and space distribution to other previously excluded social groups.

The current exhibition presents the works created by local and invited in the frame of KIOSK/CHIOȘC artist in residency program participants. By making use of abandoned, underused or mono-functional public spaces the artists along with Chișinău inhabitants, open new spaces of dialogue and critical reflection, and observation of the recent public space transformations, questioning in the same time the established order and the existing regulations along with the authority that maintains them.

The outcomes of these interventions and the reactions to them should encourage us to rethink the role that art could play and the artist could have when working in and with the public domain, regaining and opening new space of interaction in a landscape dominated by private political and economic interests.

Academia de Muzica, Teatru si Arte Plastice, blocul 3
Academy of Music, Theatre and Fine Arts, 3rd block
27 octombrie 2011, ora 16:00-17:00
str. 31 August 1989, nr. 137, etajul 1, atelier 101, Chisinau

- – – scroll down for English – – -

RO
- – – – -

Michal Holy, artist slovac in rezidenta va vorbi despre relatia dintre arta stradala si spatiul public din Kosice.

Street Art Communication (SAC) sta pentru numele unor picturi murale si a unui festival stradal din Kosice, Slovacia, precum si pentru numele unei asociatii obstesti, reprezentata la Chisinau de Michal Holy, student la departamentul Noilor Media. Impreuna cu prietenii sai el gestioneaza un magazin de spay-uri.

>> STREET ART COMMUNICATION a demarat sub forma unui atelier international, prin aplicarea graffiti-urilor si artei stradale peste tramvaiurile si autobuzele din Kosice. SACFEST este organizat de o echipa si dureaza o saptamina. Specificul sau consta in faptul ca artistii sint invitati la un loc sa lucreze si locuiasca impreuna.  SAC contribuie la revitalizarea spatiilor publice prin culori, instalind un cadrul de comunicare intre artisti si cetateni. Administratia urbei face apel la SAC pentru a interveni peste peretii din beton gri care au fost alterati de tag-uri de graffiti, iar SAC vine cu solutii. Echipa festivalului este invitata sa intervina si peste cladirile publice, scoli si blocuri cu apartamente sau sa organizeze ateliere in cadrul unor festivaluri. … <<

A 4-a editie din 2011 a fost una speciala. Pentru prima data festivalul s-a materializat pe peretii largi din centrul istoric al orasului, insa nu chiar totul a decurs perfect. Pentru ca Kosice va fi o Capitala Culturala Europeana doar in 2013 administratia publica inca ramine reticenta fata de noile forme culturale.

“Surpriza” festivalului a rezultat din 2 lucrari. Prima pe peretele unui bazin de innot, unde artistul a avut o sarcina destul de simpla – de a crea un motiv acvatic. Artistul spaniol Aryz a facut abastractie de sarcina care i s-a propus si a reprodus un “monstru”. Oameni influenti au facut apeluri prin intermediul presei locale ca peste lucrarea pictata se se intervina prin acoperirea ei pentru ca este una urita, nu se potriveste, incurajeaza consumul de droguri sau este chiar satanica (datorita coroanei de pe capul “monstrului”). Alte grupuri, considerabil mai mari, au agreat stilul liber in care aa fost executata lucrarea. Primarul a avut ultimul cuvins sa-l spuna iar decizia sa a fost ca lucrarea sa ramina. Acum este pus in discutie daca aceasta lucrare ar putea fi reprodusa pe tichetele de intrare la bazin.

A doua lucrare a generat replici pentru ca s-a realizat fara o permisiune legata si ca a provocat pagube. Organizatorii festivalului sustin ca acest non-sens este cauzat de un exces al birocratiei, unde mina dreapta nu cunoaste ce face mina singa. “Acest festival este un accident de proportii mari si a avut noroc ca s-a produs” sint reactiile celor iritati. Centrul istoric al orasului Kosice este plin de panouri publicitare fara vreo valoare culturala. Va avea oare arta moderna un cuvint de spus in societate?

http://sacfest.org/en/news

Michal Holy este absolvent al Școlii Tehnice secundare de Arte Decorative din Kosice, Slovacia [http://suvke.sk/nov], în prezent student la facultatea de Noi Media de la Universitatea Tehnică din Kosice [http://www.fu.tuke.sk]. El este autorul unor instalații, proiecte de artă interactive, colaje foto și videoart.
Activitatea sa recentă constă în documentarea scenei de artă stradală locale în care el personal este prezent din 1998, editînd o revistă undergroud din Kosice și participînd la organizarea festivalului Street Art Communications. Ocazional practică VJ-ing.

http://www.kosice2013.sk/en

= = = = =

Programul CHIOSC de rezindenta pentru artisti
Spre deosebire de expozitiile de arta si proiectele gata facute, care circula in intreaga lume, programul CHIOSC de resedinta pentru artisti incurajeaza crearea unor lucrari noi, produse in raport cu contextul si realitatile locale. El ofera posibilitatea de a explora diferite probleme ce se refera la situatia Moldovei in general si de a analiza procesele care modeleaza astazi spatiul public al Chisinaului. Mai multe despre program: http://chiosc.oberliht.org/air

Rezidenta lui Michal Holy la Chisinau este sustinuta de Kosice 2013 – Capitala Culturala Europeana: http://www.kosice2013.sk/en
și Ministerul Culturii al Slovaciei: http://www.culture.gov.sk/en

Street Art Communication, Kosice, Slovacia, 2011

EN
– – – – -

Michal Holy, Slovakian artist in residency, speaks about relation of streetart and public space in Kosice.

Street Art Communication (SAC) represents the name of murals and the street art festival in Košice [Slovakia] as well as the civic association. Michal Holy, student of New Media, represents it in Chisinau. With his friends they run a small spray shop.

>>STREET ART COMMUNICATION started as an international workshop, applying graffiti & street art onto city trams and traffic buses in the city of Kosice, Slovakia. SAC team is organizing SACFEST, 7 day International Festival of Street-art. The main difference between similar events is getting the artists into one area where they live and work together.

SAC is revitalizing public space with colors, using communication between artist and local citizens. SAC is now asked by the city to paint a grey beton spaces or walls that are permanently damaged by graffiti tags , as SAC seems to be a solution. The crew is also called to paint public houses, schools, blocks of flats, to do workshops on festivals … <<

In 2011, the fourth edition of the Street Art Communication Festival was special. For the first time the festival was promoted on large scale walls in the historic centre of town, which was not all that smooth. As Kosice 2013 will be European Capital of Culture, the city council is still not open minded to new culture.

The biggest “hello” was called by two artworks. The first on the swimming pool, where the artist had a simple task, a water motive. Spanish man Aryz took it quite abstractly and painted a “monster”. Different influential people were asking through local press to over paint the artwork, saying it is ugly, no suitable, drugs promoting and even satanic (because of the crown on the head). Other groups, seemingly bigger, liked the freestyle concept of it. Burgomaster probably had the last word, deciding the artwork can stay. Now, it is discussed if the image on the wall could be used as the print on the tickets for the swimming pool.

Second controversial wall had two official complaints, for starting painting without legal permission and unknown delinquent for damage. According to organizer, this nonsense is the product of the bureaucracy where the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing. “It is one big accident and luck that this festival happened, it was worth it”. It is the reaction on all the hassles around the festival. There are stupid billboards in the historic part of city with no cultural value.  So, will modern art play fair game in our society?

http://sacfest.org/en/news

Michal Holy graduated at secondary technical school of applied arts Kosice [http://suvke.sk/nov], recently studying New Media at Technical University Kosice [http://www.fu.tuke.sk] creating installations, interactive art, video art, photo collages.

Michal recently documents the local street art scene in which he is personally active since ’98, preparing magazine about underground art in Kosice, helping organizing SACFEST, occasionally doing VJing.

= = = = =

KIOSK artist in residency program
Unlike ready-made exhibitions and projects that circulate worldwide, the KIOSK AIR program encourages creation of new work in relation to local contexts and realities. It offers the opportunity to explore various issues that relate to Moldova’s situation in general and to analyze the processes that shape Chisinau’s public space today. More about the program: http://chiosc.oberliht.org/air

The residency of Michal Holy is supported by Kosice 2013 – European Capital of Culture: http://www.kosice2013.sk/en
and Slovak Ministry of Culture: http://www.culture.gov.sk/en