FILKO – FYLKO – PHYLKO
02.06 – 16.08.2015 FILKO – FYLKO – PHYLKO
Zachęta – National Gallery of Art
curators: Lucia Gregorová Stachová (SNG), Joanna Kordjak (Zachęta)
collaboration: Aurel Hrabušický (SNG)
The successive versions of Stano Filko's name FILKO – FYLKO – PHYLKO (and later VIRTUAL FILKO) told of the different stages of his life, the caesuras between which were marked by dates that were important from both political and personal points of view. His “legend of the artist” is also noteworthy for the episodes he experienced of clinical death (in 1945 and 1952), and became a part of the artistic project composed of the total work that is his oeuvre. Its material is equally his own biography and also the artist's archive, the unceasing reordering and classification of which over a period of decades became his obsession.
The Stano Filko exhibition in Zachęta is the first such extensive presentation in Poland of one of the most outstanding and best known Slovakian artists. On the international arena his work became known from the second half of the 1960s through his pioneering realisations of environments.
His final project of this type realised in 1970 – the spatial installation Breath (known also as Wind or Pneumatic Heart) constitutes the central point of the exhibition. It is composed principally of works from the period preceding the artist's emigration to the United States in 1982, amongst them his best known series of prints and objects Associations that makes use of utopian urbanist projects or the documentation of the series of conceptual actions HAPPSOC (happy society). The latter encompassed within the scope of their ambition, the city, the nation and even the whole globe. Inspired by the conquest of space, Filko's work constitutes an ironic game with the language of Cold War propaganda, and at the same time a manifestation of the unlimited freedom of an artist contesting a totalitarian system.
The collages, installations, videos and documentations of environments and happenings come from the collections of the Slovakian National Gallery, and also from private collections and the artist's archive.
FILKO – FYLKO – PHYLKO
02.06 – 16.08.2015
Zachęta – National Gallery of Art
pl. Małachowskiego 3, 00-916 Warsaw
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Godziny otwarcia:
Tuesday – Sunday 12–8 p.m.
Thursday – free entry
ticket office is open until 7.30 p.m.
co-organizer: Slovak National Gallery
partner of the exhibition: Instytut Słowacki
sponsor of the opening ceremony: Freixenet
media patronage: The Warsaw Voice, Stolica, Artinfo.pl