Art Collection Telekom – Preview: Eva Kot’átková, Maria Kulikovska

September 23^rd– 25^th, 2016

Opening: 23^rdSeptember, 5 p.m.

Opening Hours:

September 23^rd, 5 – 9 p.m.

September 24^th – 25^th, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.

September 24^th, 2 p.m. - meeting with Maria Kulikovska (held in English)

Free Admission

With the presentation of a work by Czech artist Eva Kot'átková and a newly acquired work by Ukrainian artist Maria Kulikovska at the Xawery Dunikowski Museum of Sculpture in the Królikarnia Palace, the Art Collection Telekom is a guest of honour at the Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2016.

The Art Collection Telekom was founded in 2010 with a clear curatorial concept focusing on contemporary art from Eastern Europe. The collection is aiming to capture the contemporary artistic intentions by collecting exemplary art works from this large and diverse area. Nearly all artists are sharing through Internet and social media a comparable reality. The experiences of daily life are characterized by similar and shared images, dreams and hopes defined by consumerism and the commodity world. Yet, shared experiences are coming up against different private, social and economic perspectives and political structures. Living in the same world and addressing comparable existential and societal questions, leads to very different artistic statements.

The two artists presented at the Krolikarnia, as divergent as they seem to be, are an excellent example to demonstrate the range of the artistic voices that can be heard in Europe today.

Homo Bulla refers to an old Latin proverb expressing that the human existence is like a bubble. The human being in all its fragility and transience might become compared to a beautiful but fugacious soap bubble. The three sculptures by Maria Kulikovska, titled Homo Bulla (white, red, green), are made from coloured soap and have been casted from her own body. In 2012 Maria Kulikovska had realized a similar series of these translucent bodies, which are mysteriously shining, like precious gems from their inner core. They where installed on the site of a former factory for insulation materials in Donetsk, Ukraine. The area of the abandoned buildings was home to the Izolyatsia Foundation, which focussed on promoting and giving a home to contemporary art in the former heavy industries region in the Eastern part of Ukraine and is now active in exile in Kiev.

The soap sculptures were placed outside and exposed to rain, heat and weather. The process of change and partly, but continuous dissolution of the materials by nature, was stopped abruptly by violence. In June 2014, militia of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ seized the territory. Most of the artworks and facilities were vandalized and the sculptures were used for target practising.

The three newly produced Homo Bulla sculptures were shown in 2015 at Saatchi Gallery in London, where the artist realized a seemingly very aggressive action. She entered the exhibition space naked and hit her own sculpture and casted body with a hammer. The deep wounds and scars stay visible on the green sculpture.

Maria Kulikovska was born 1988 in the harbour city of Kerch on the peninsula with the same name, which forms the eastern part of Crimea. She studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kiev and achieved 2013 a master in fine arts and architecture. After the occupation and annexation of Crimea through Russia, she became a registered refugee with nr 254 in her own country.

Some tables and stools are standing alone, some are building up groups, some are standing on top of each other, some are plugged together and are offering an option to climb up to a higher level. Each visitor can sit down, relax, look around and define his or her position in the overall structure and in relation to the other levels and participants in the game. This work by Czech artist Eva Kot'átková can generate a social and psychological game with a playful and changeable setting of high and low, of above and below, of together and alone.

Such a structure of relations is determined in real life often not by free choice but rather by coercion, submission, restraint, control and command. All these are instruments and tools of dominance and power, which play also an important part in education.

Education, as a process to develop the abilities of the mind, to train practical skills and to learn social rules and societal behaviour, is quite often visualized by using the image of a pyramid. It’s a reasonable model to demonstrate the hierarchical steps and levels deeper knowledge and understanding or better skills might be rising up to. It might be also a good image to show the social ladder and possibilities higher education offers for possible social advancement. What might determine the social and emotional position of the individual by schooling, formation and shaping of temper and predisposition turns in the work Educational Model by Eva Kot'átková into a playful setting.

Eva Kot'átková was born 1982 in Prague, then capital of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. She lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic.

The exhibition at Królikarnia is made possible thanks to the partnership established between T-Mobile Poland and Warsaw Gallery Weekend and anticipates a larger survey exhibition with works from the Art Collection Telekom in the Królikarnia Sculpture Museum during September and October 2017.

Special thanks to Katarzyna Prokesz for her help with the translations.