Y - Point for Youth

  The Project Y – The Point for the Young or just Y (Young) – is a series of exhibitions presenting works of art or rather the artist’s interference in the gallery space, yet they ideologically or physically extend beyond it, making use of new media and innovative original artistic techniques. Attention is paid to the places in the gallery used in exhibitions negligibly, marginally or not at all, though they are also important communication channels. The aim of this project is to raise the viewers’ awareness and inspire them to change their understanding of art and contemporary visual culture. It is important that this project does not impose any restrictions on the artist’s age. Contemporariness and originality are understood as young age.

 The first of a series of exhibitions, Hands before the Motorcycle, created by two artists, Miro Trubač and Ľuboš Gajdoš, requires the viewer’s attention, encourages vandalism, entertains, yet achieves interaction between the audience and the art object, between the public and the art gallery.

 The object Hands by Miroslav Trubač is a logical result of the artist’s work focused on the exploration of the forms of object, work on the classic sculpture as well as research on human coexistence and interpersonal relationships in the environment of a social group. The piece has enriched his portfolio of artistic activities involving the elements engaging the observer – perceiver of the artwork or its user. Interactivity and the process of formation of an artwork have become two essential components in Trubač’s further research into human behaviour. The motif of open human palms symbolically encourages passers-by to come closer and touch the green matt object. Huge modelled hands create an adequate alternative to outdoor seating in the park. They represent the bench, a place to relax and a means of communication. The large-sized model of two hands joined by wrists, and palms turned upward, can serve as an answering machine for writing in the same way as walls of buildings, fences or trees. The public space of squares or parks thus changes into a sociological laboratory in which the artist observes and explores feelings, thoughts, beliefs and symbols etched into artificial stone from which the Hands are made. By encouraging the viewer to commit an act of intentional “vandalism”, Trubač changes dogmatic views on the role of classic urban sculpture. So far his Hands have been located in the Apollo business centre and Hviezdoslav Square in Bratislava and in the Outdoor Gallery in Nitra. Košice is the fourth site, the point on the route around Slovakia.

 The second of the two exhibited works is the object Lugati by Ľubo Gajdoš, whose work focuses on mapping the relationship between the object and the perceiver, providing a survey of the value of the work of art as a collection item or an object of the artist’s testimony, of a distinctive artistic language. Through the model of a motorcycle, created from found, unused, but functional objects (seeking starting points in the principles of ready-made and assemblage) from his surroundings, he expresses his admiration for Ducati motorcycle. A deliberately made copy of the motorcycle is the result of a creative process. It balances on the semantic border between the objects/art piece made to win admiration of the public or art collectors and the object/amusing element intended for public amusement.

 The forms of both objects make associations with popular objects partly “destructed” or stylised, thereby inspiring the audience’s perception, encouraging intellectual thought and involving interaction, providing amusement and an almost of “trivial” fun.

 Michal Štofa