GALÉRIA Z

Archive

AFTER HOURS
09.09. - 10.10.2010

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Mili priatelia, milovnici umenia, kolegovia a mili hostia! 
Dear friends! Art lovers, colleagues and guests! We thank you for your interest in  After Hours / Individual Stories, an exhibition prepared by Dalibor Polivka, Viktor Hulik, Xenia Lettrichova and Rob Mintz with the cooperation of Galeria Z and the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art.  This exhibition was made possible  by the generous support of Vice Consul Milan Kovac of the Consulate General of the Slovak Republic, Los Angeles, the US Embassy in Bratislava,  the Slovak Ministry of Culture, and by the spirited generosity of individual donors.  We would also like to thank the members of OCCCA, a non-profit arts organization operated by its members whose works are presented here tonight.  One of the objectives of After Hours / Individual Stories is to evoke the artistic contexts of our two countries in a manner that transcends localism --- but without watering down the differences that make the artscenes in Bratislava and Santa Ana so interesting.  An alternative space such as OCCCA is independent of the pre-formulated cultural reality presented by the mass media.  Art’s voice is crucial in a truly polyphonic society. We believe that creating a platform for artists has significance beyond the artworks themselves, that art is about more than what the eye can see. 
Many things have been said about the “globalization” of art in an increasingly interdependent world.  But I would like to emphasize that globalization does not mean mono-culturalism.   No, I believe that globalization should happen on the level of our collective consciousness.  It should be based on respect for minorities and sub-cultures and the cultivation of mutual understanding.  After Hours is an eye-opening artistic dialog between two cultural entities, overcoming preconceptions on both sides.  It is no secret that the spread of consumerism is destructive to the identity of small nations.  Maybe art  can help counter this seemingly relentless trend.  Today’s new horizon appears when art becomes a placeless idea available everywhere and to anyone.  The picture of the world is finalized by the viewer who senses in art the possibility of social interactions as natural as breathing.  I invite you to look at these works not as artifacts, but as opportunities to hear the voice of those who strive to find a place on the globe for personal development in spite of their limitations, their foibles, their place in the economic food chain.  It is this shared subjectivity, these individual stories, that we hope you will recall long after the last guests leave the gallery.

Dalibor Polivka
September 2010

After Hours
With an exhibit about life’s big questions, an artists’ co-operative searches for epiphanies.  Who are we, where are we going?  These O.C existentialists understand fame’s fifteen minutes are fleeting.  Art is forever. They are activists on behalf of their  obsessions, convinced that art is an unpredictable experiment.  They are practical dreamers, street-smart provocateurs. They believe art has the power to cause a paradigm shift in the way people think about daily life.

When the works they create are presented together under one roof in Slovakia, magic happens, especially as the evening grows late, and final toasts are proposed to the  future’s unfinished sketches. The artworks come alive, rubbing against each other with the friction of ideas, triggering animated arguments among the gallery’s guests, strangers no longer in a sudden rush to divulge intimate secrets, personal tastes, fears and longings.  At OCCCA after hours, in every work of art, the cool breeze of a coming dawn.

Rob Mintz, 2010

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