Close Up

How can an artist protest in today’s world? His place in the society, his sensitiveness and primarily visual means of communication all contribute to his readiness for reaction to and a critical review of political atmosphere and other problems related to culture and art in a specific situation. The exhibition „Close up“ in the etc. gallery offers several ways of expressing a protest in the context of  contemporary art. What they all have in common is similar historical experience. In the 1990s, these regions went through a transformation following decades of a totalitarian regime. That period determined the way they formed the cultural and social conventions and the consequences can be seen on every level of the society, including contemporary art scene. The locally dependent topics of each of the contributions can be perceived in a broader sense so that they reflect universal approach of an artist towards politics, culture, cultural policy, society, history, the system and so on. We contacted curators from Romania (Florin Bobu & 1+1), Slovakia (Jana Kapelová), Hungary (Eszter Kozma and Márton Pascika) and Serbia (Milos Miletic, Mirjana Radovanovic) and Czech Republic (Vjera Borozan and Jirka Havlíček) who picked these particular projects. Every project employs  different visual language: the exhibition includes newspaper as a classic medium, collages, a web page running on a tablet, photographic documentation of protest events, an interview recorded in the form of a printed leaflet, authentic artefact symbolizing a past protest event. The exhibition is based on a recently published collection of contributions Close-Up Post-Transition Writing and it is also a final output of the “Close-Up” project initiated by Artyčok TV. In the project’s realization participated the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Udružnje KURS, REMONT, Tranzit.ro, Lumen and ARTTODAY. Simultaneously we will launch a screening of critical videos created within the Close-Up project in the space of A4 in Bratislava.