Exhibition "At the museum"
from 18. 9. 2024 to 17. 11. 2024
One space, two artists, and a shared creative passion, along with different artistic media and responses to the fluid times around us. All of this is presented in an exhibition with the unpretentious ambition to provoke thought and engage the senses. Both artists are drawn to the monumental nature of artistic expression (whether emotional or actual—dimensional) and, in contrast, an intimate fragility that drips with humanity. Marek Ormandík is a deeply expressive painter and draftsman, while architect Norbert Šmondrk focuses on three-dimensional artistic objects in his free creations.
The centerpiece of Marek Ormandík’s presentation consists of two "mammoth," nearly 7-meter canvases (Traffic Jam to Heaven and Dance of Death). The main theme of his large-scale works is the essence of transience, a sort of Memento mori hovering over the wild expressiveness of worldly hustle and bustle. The author’s series of "floral-faunal" paintings (Opulent Bouquet, Black Herd) should serve to balance these existential motifs, as well as perhaps his paintings of lover pairs (Embrace). However, the sense of an impending end is also encoded within them.
Norbert Šmondrk’s objects are characterized by a diversity of shapes and materials (steel, sheet metal, glass, wood, plastic), as well as thematic richness. They embody a duality of content, responding to the social happenings around us (Oligarchy) through individual emotions, while also addressing the everyday agenda known as life (Temptation). External stimuli are always composed into a strong individual story within a specific space and real time.
Ľudovít Petránsky, curator of the exhibition.
