ARTIST PROFILE

Milan Vagač

  • Slovakia (b. 1987 in Bratislava)
  • Currently in Praha, Czech Republic.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My current practice is focused on language of geometrical abstraction. I’m examining its possibilities through paintings, drawings or objects. My work is based on typical forms of the modernist avant-garde such as constructivism, neoplasticism, or functionalist movements in architecture and design. An important part of my work is thus the relation to the past defined by possibilities of our memory. A retrospection and constant verification of comebacks in art generate new opportunities for the future of painting. I used the original modernist ideas to define the shape and role of similar current approaches. A modernist grid is now replaced by virtual grid, which relativizes the primary exactness. Today’s utopia is fully digitized and reflects mankind living in an atomised world. To me, abstract painting represents a suitable form of projection of the nature of the modern world. The question of abstract painting lies in the setting of its system, in the structure of relations of visual means that determine its final form.


Moja aktuálna práca je sústredená na jazyk geometrickej abstrakcie, ktorého možnosti skúmam najmä prostredníctvom maľby, kresby či objektu. Východiskami mojej práce sú najmä formy typické pre modernistické avantgardy, ako konštruktivizmus, či neoplasticizmus, alebo funkcionalistické hnutia v architektúre a dizajne. Dôležitou súčasťou mojej práce je tak vzťah k minulosti, definovaný možnosťami našej pamäti. Pohľad späť a s ním spojené preverovanie návratov v umení generujú nové možnosti pre budúcnosť maľby. Pôvodné modernistické idey mi slúžia k zadefinovaniu podoby a role podobných prístupov v súčasnosti. Modernistickú mriežku dnes nahradil virtuálny grid, ktorý pôvodnú exaktnosť značne relativizuje. Dnešné utópie sú už plne digitalizované, a dotýkajú sa tak človeka žijúceho v atomizovanom svete. Abstraktná maľba pre mňa predstavuje vhodný model projekcie povahy súčasného sveta. Problematika abstraktného obrazu spočíva práve v nastavení jeho systému, štruktúry vzťahov vizuálnych prostriedkov ktoré určujú jeho výslednú podobu.



BIOGRAPHY

1987 birth in Bratislava

from 2013 Editor and co-founder of Magazine X about Contemporary Drawing


Education

2006 – 2012

Master of Arts: Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, department: Painting,

studio: +-XXI, prof. Daniel Fischer

2015

Art Doctorate residency, Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, department: Intermedia III, Tomáš Vaněk

2013 - 2016

Art Doctorate, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, department: Painting, studio: Mal+by, Klaudia Kosziba


Group exhibitions

2016 A je tu zas, Kunsthalle, Bratislava, SK

2016 Edition 2016, SODA Gallery, SK

2016 Měsíc v ůnoru, tříbení ascendentů, Gallery Industra, Brno, CZ

2015 POKOJE 4, Containall, Prague, CZ

2015 RESET, Trienale of drawing and small object, Gallery J. Kollár, Banská štiavnica, SK

2015 Zlínsky salón mladých, Regional Art Gallery in Zlin, Zlín, CZ

2014 Tracing memories, VAAL Gallery, Tallin, EST

2014 Wandering through the memory of photography, SALA DOGANA, Janov, IT

2014 Rozmanitosť nutná, Slovak national gallery, Bratislava, SK

2014 Skydivers, Bridges & Wheels, Chimera Project, Budapest, HU

2014 LED TYPE!, Space gallery, Bratislava, SK

2013 Home Sweet Home, SODA gallery, Bratislava, SK

2013 Podporovaný formát (Supported Format), Gallery Médium, Bratislava, SK

2013 Hunky Dory, Karlin Halls, Prague, CZ

2013 Visual Inspiration & Personal Quests, City Exhibition Hall - Riga Art Space, Riga, Latvia

2013 Vertical landscape, horizontal wayfaring, Gallery Čin Čin, Bratislava, SK

2013 Lie, The night of six performances, A4 – nultý priestor, Bratislava, SK

2013 Visual Inspiration & Personal Quests, Slovenský inštitút, Moskva, Russia

2012 The first of the last days, The night of six performances, A4 – nultý priestor, Bratislava, SK

2012 OFF, alternative festival of contemporary photography, Pisztoryho palác, Bratislava, SK

2012 YOUNG ART FROM CEE, VIG, Exhibition centre in the Ringturm, Vienna, AU

2012 VI. Zlínsky salón mladých, Regional Art Gallery in Zlin, Zlín, CZ

2012 Second season, Artbanka Museum of Young Art, Praha, CZ

2011 ESSL ART AWARD CEE 2011, Essl museum, Klosterneuburg/Vienna, AU

2011 ESSL ART AWARD CEE 2011, Nominnes exhibition, Gallery Médium, Bratislava, SK

2011 Práveže naopak, Hangár, Tranzit studios, Studená 12, Bratislava, SK

2010 Plus mínus XXI reloaded, Stredoslovenská galéria, Banská Bystrica, SK

2009 Plus mínus XXI, Dom umenia, Bratislava, SK


Solo exhibitions

2016 Formovanie, DOT Gallery, Bratislava, SK

2016 WASSILY, I hate your perfect curves, SODA gallery, Bratislava, SK

2015 Situation 63, Gallery Pavilon, Prague, CZ

2013 Lost and Found, Gallery Artotéka, Bratislava, SK

2013 Sláva Milanovi, Milan Sláve, Nitrianska galéria, Nitra, SK

2013 The picture, deliberately created image, Gallery Dunaj, Bratislava, SK

2012 Memories of stardust, SODA Gallery, Bratislava, SK

2011 Archeology of daillines, Gallery 19, Bratislava, SK

2011 Mo(nu)ment, Gallery 19, Bratislava, SK

2010 Inside the Room / hommage à Louise Bourgeois, Hangár - Tranzit, Bratislava, SK


Curatorial projects

2015 ART GROUPIE — FRANZ THE LONELY AUSTRIONAUT - Contemporary drawing from Austria, Industra Gallery, Brno, CZ

2015 CZXSK - Contemporary drawing from Czech and Slovak republic, Gagarinka gallery, Bratislava, SK

2014 Memory and Notation, Conference about Contemporary drawing, Berlinka, Bratislava, SK

2013 Mind Lines, Conference about Contemporary drawing, Berlinka, Bratislava, SK


Awards

2017 Headlands Residency Program, USA

2011 ESSL ART AWARD CEE, Vienna, AU

2011 YOUNG ART FROM CEE, Vienna, AU


Residnecies

2017 Meetfactory, Praha, CZ

2016 Nida Art Colony, Nida, LT