KUNSTHALLE BRATISLAVA

CRITICAL THINKING SERIES (2022–2023)

The aim of the Critical Thinking Series is to expand on the concepts proposed by Kunsthalle Bratislava’s exhibition programming, by providing further critical discursive thinking in the form of essays and poems by international thinkers. The texts are translated into Slovak for the first time, making this knowledge and critical thinking accessible to readers who do not necessarily read in English. ‘In defence of translation. When a word or concept travels, its meaning and applicability begin to shapeshift. … In defence of the idea that concepts are not geographically bound, that they can and should float, bend and be utilised by organisers, art practitioners across the world.’ (In Defence of Translation, 2021) The texts are published bilingually: in the original English and also translated into Slovak for the first time. The wide accessibility and sustainability of the project is ensured by the fact that all of the publications are accessible free of charge on the Kunsthalle Bratislava website.

Futures

Curated by: Jen Kratochvil
Contributors: Barbara Kapusta, Jen Kratochvil, Sophie Lewis, Legacy Russell

The publication is the first in a series of new publishing programming, focusing on critical thinking in relation to the Kunsthalle’s exhibition program. This publication contains two essays by internationally acclaimed writers Sophie Lewis and Legacy Russell, who bring an important critical point of departure on how to think further about the issue of radical solidarity in the times of climate crisis and how to create empowerment through virtual and technological possibilities. Both essays are for the first time ever translated and published in the Slovak language. These essays are accompanied by the exhibition text written by the exhibition curator, Jen Kratochvil, and a poem written by the artist. Kapusta has designed a new font for her exhibition at Kunsthalle Bratislava in collaboration with the graphic designer Sabo Day. Futures is an alphabet of 26 characters.

Do Nothing, Feel Everything

Editor: Denisa Tomková
Contributors: Sara Ahmed, Lola Olufemi, Mikkel Krause Frantzen, Laura Amann and Aziza Harmel
Translation: Denisa Tomková
Graphic design: Lukáš Kollár

This online publication accompanies the exhibition Do Nothing, Feel Everything, curated by Laura Amann & Aziza Harmel. The exhibition reflects on our ability to cope with the external factors of the current era. Sara Ahmed’s essay ‘Selfcare as Warfare’ reminds us that we are not all born into the same support system. Ahmed references Audre Lorde’s A Burst of Light, arguing in favour of selfcare. Lola Olufemi’s essay ‘Hours against the clock: on the politics of laziness’ examines how capitalism appropriated time and labour for its profit and proposes laziness as a tool. Similarly, to the curators of this exhibition, Mikkel Krause Frantzen’s essay ‘Welcome to the world’s happiest nation’ sees the ascent of depression in our ‘loss of (the ability to imagine) the future.’ Lola Olufemi’s poem 'I am always writing the same thing…' offers us the horizon and a gesture towards imagining a different future that is possible.

SOMETHING IS BURNING

Editor: Denisa Tomková
Contributors: Elio Choquette, Angela Dimitrakaki, Luki Essender, Jack Halberstam, Lara Perry, Julius Pristauz
Translation: Denisa Tomková
Graphic design: Lukáš Kollár

The publication accompanies the group exhibition SOMETHING IS BURNING, curated by Julius Pristauz. Angela Dimitrakaki and Lara Perry’s text ‘How to Be Seen: An Introduction to Feminist Politics, Exhibition Cultures and Curatorial Transgressions’, offers a useful resource when discussing the exhibition of political projects in spaces such as museums and exhibitions. Jack Halberstam’s essay ‘Queer Temporality and Postmodern Geographies’ examines the concepts of ‘queer time’ and ‘queer space’ and suggests that they develop in opposition to the institutions' of family, heterosexuality, and reproduction. Architect Elio Choquette’s essay ‘Queering Architecture //(Un)making place’ proposes – by extending on what Choquette sees as a central aspect of queer theory (adaptability and flexibility) – a “queering” of architecture. The artist Luki Essender’s piece ‘explores obsessions with beards, fashion, heteronormativity, sex, traveling and data through a fragmented memoir of a white twink.’

You and I

Editor: Denisa Tomková
Contributors: Judith Butler, Emanuele Coccia, José Esteban Muñoz, Jen Kratochvil, Paul Maheke
Translation: Denisa Tomková
Copyediting: Zuzana Andrejco Ferusová
Graphic design: Lukáš Kollár

In their essay ‘Gender Politics and Right to Appear’, Judith Butler importantly highlights the precarious conditions in which gender and sexual minorities live. Butler argues for interdependence and an equal right to appear for all, including protection of our waters, soils and animal rights. Emanuele Coccia’s Metamorphoses suggests that the interdependence of living beings not only changes the environment of other species, but also alters ‘the destiny of other species’. The publication concludes its theoretical contributions with José Esteban Muñoz’s essay ‘Felling Utopia’, which not only asks readers to reconsider ideas such as hope and utopia, but also urges us to consider the ‘queer critique from a renewed and newly animated sense of the social’. Paul Maheke’s short story The Mauve Hour accompanies and complements his exhibited film, Mauve, Jim and John. The publication, accompanying the exhibition You and I, invites us to contemplate a thin line (if any) between you and I.

After Work

Editor: Denisa Tomková
Contributors: Jay Bernard, Kathryn Bond Stockton, Jos Boys, Simone R. Caljouw, Jen Kratochvil, Rob Withagen
Translation: Denisa Tomková
Copyediting: Zuzana Andrejco Ferusová
Graphic design: Lukáš Kollár

The essays in this publication consider the distinctions between different zones and places designed for play and work. On the one hand, Withagen and Caljouw argue in the publication that van Eyck’s playgrounds became an integral part of the city and had an ‘urban character’, that managed to establish the integration of the playgrounds into the city; Boys, on the other hand, suggests that in the post-1945 British town planning, towns were divided into different activities, each with its appropriate location and environment. This led to domestic roles and responsibilities but also to gender inequalities. Stockton’s contribution provides conceptual thinking about a ‘ghostly gayness in the figure of the child’. The publication also contains a poem by Jay Bernard, with the eponymous title After Work. The poem is displayed both as part of the exhibition installation on the gallery walls and as the video’s soundtrack playing in the exhibition space.

There is no end To what a living world Will demand of you.*

Editor: Denisa Tomková, in collaboration with the Studio vvv
Contributors: Marina Garcés, Walidah Imarisha, Grant Kester, Dávid Koronczi, Joy Mariama Smith & Raoni Saleh
Translation: Denisa Tomková
Copyediting: Zuzana Andrejco Ferusová
Graphic design: Lukáš Kollár

The essays in this publication address contemporary artistic practices that aim to stimulate dialogue with others, provoke social change, engage with reality, imagine a new and better world, and also encourage us to unlearn and relearn collectively and dialogically. In his essay, Grant Kester discusses art projects based on dialogical exchange. Marina Garcés proposes that if it is the word ‘art’ that prevents us from inclination towards honesty with the real, we need to ‘leave art to one side and seek new names for these creations’. Walidah Imarisha’s essay is an important exploration of the link between science fiction stories and social justice movements. Raoni Saleh & Joy Mariama Smith urge readers to think about the ways in which we learn, encouraging us to learn collectively.