Group show: Zero Years - Slovak Visual Art between 1999 and 2011 from Four Curatorial Perspectives (over)

	Installation view

MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts 1 Baltazar Dezo ter 4026 Debrecen Hungary (city map) Send E-mail tel +36 52 525 016 www.modemart.hu

The title of the new exhibition in MODEM refers to both the beginning and the end. No wonder, as contemporary Slovak art is connected to twentieth-century avant-garde and modernist efforts in many ways, while the political and cultural background of the works is somehow still provided by the new, global, post-nationalist and post-communist condition. The curators (Juraj Čarný, Gabriela Garlatyová, Richard Gregor and Mira Sikorová-Putišová), who were socialized around the time of the change of regime, have compiled their own individual sections according to criteria they deemed emblematic. The four perspectives, however, overlap in several respects, subtly highlighting the characteristic visual trends of the "zero years", i.e. the 2000s.

The exhibition offers an insight to the less known production of the Slovak arts from the last decade and diverts the attention to the similarities of the Slovak and Hingarian art scene, such as the previously suppressed and recently institutionalized avant-garde art, the process of eliminating socialist history and the postmodern cirtique of modern politics and mdernist art.

In addition to ideological concerns, the curators stress the problematic of the medium and the image, the curators undoubtedly selected the works of the most renowned "national" stars (Roman Ondák, Július Koller) while also attempting to present new, subversive voices.