LUCIA TALLOVÁ

Second Archive

Medium gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia

Curated by Zuzana Pacáková

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The exhibition Second Archive refers in particular to the exhibition of the Archive of Fictional Memories at the Stupava Synagogue (2016), where the author developed the theme of the archive in the form of a spatial specific installation of wooden shelves and racks occupied by collages, objects, paintings, old photographs and albums under which Tallová told the fictional stories of anonymous people. The Second Archive is a continuation of the project, not only thematically but also visually - the author focuses on "occupying" the gallery space with objects, furniture, museums that refer to fragments of old archives, depositaries, cabinets of curiosities, complemented by a collection of personal journals, sketches and photographs.

The subject of a personal archive also refers to the author's collection and collection of old photographs, albums, postcards, porcelain, stones and various bizarre objects and furniture, a troublesome objects that they subsequently manipulate and transform. They are made of a working material and a tool, underlined by layering and repeating its distinctive motifs and symbols, such as the black ink, the tear of colour, the dust and smoke particles, blurred horizons, ribbons or flowers as strong symbols of femininity, nostalgia and sentiment. The female figure becomes the central theme of the redesigned story of black and white photographs. The author deliberately exploits mistakes in photographs - blurry, erroneous, blurred images, bad compositions, flaws and mistakes in making them, and the impact of time and patina on photographic papers. These errors accentuate, overlap, and transform through painting and collage.

The exhibition offers not only the latest author's work, but also the sound of its probe into its intimacy, personal collections, memories and archives, its work and thought processes. The author opens the door to his studio, where they not only make, but also transform, collect, lay, multiply, archive and search. He reacts to the way of thinking about older painting on paper and canvas, working with the theme of losing, forgetting, some eras, related to the theme of memory and the memory of real or invented story-archives.

In the latest installations and objects, Tallová uses his old ink drawings and watercolour paintings, which suddenly become a material - they are further manipulating, cutting and gluing, rebuilding the collage, which the never-presented work from sketches and the grasp of his studio receive "second life." Some of the exhibition sections refer to automatic artwork, such as circle spinning and new reworking of old works and stories in translated meaning. The main element of the exhibition is the cyclical repetition, intuitive collection and storage, not the work itself with space, its architecture and the visitor's movement in it. The objects and furniture occupy the exhibition space in a thoughtful stage design that underlines and communicates with the character of the historical hall of the gallery and is finishing together a homogeneous atmospheric environment where the past is brought to the present.

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