Peter Roller (1948) has been dedicated to his participative and altruistic project Petrograms for more than twenty years now. At the beginning, there was a little stone, which the sculptor marked, painted by signs, and then gave to somebody. Around years 2010/2011, he started distributing the painted stones by spreading them around Bratislava and through his friends – “messengers” also around the world. For the current purpose, he covered the found stones, mostly boulders and pebblestones, by original patterns designed specifically for SNG. They are peculiar, mysterious signs reminiscent of black-and-white keyboard or musical notes. Some of the stones, marked by red colour, are more precious; and there are less of them. For SNG, the author has used exclusively stones from the Danube, since – in the words of geologist Václav Cílek – the Danube is the greatest Bratislava artwork…
Part of these stones (the collection displayed in the interior) will join the gallery collection, some pieces are intended for visitors. Gradually throughout the duration of the exhibition, the author will place them outside of the gallery premises. Those, who will find their (lucky) stone, can take it home with them. Petrograms are stones with sedimented memory and thus, for each finder they can represent not only a special artwork, but can also become a talisman with a riddle, or a souvenir encompassing a reference to the place where they found it. Part of the display is a collection of Roller's drawings and large-scale metal sculptures installed under the Bridging, as well as visually appealing catalogue.
Denisa Lehocká (1971) has been working for over a year to prepare a monumental wall in the SNG Atrium. On the area of 15x2.75 m, a spatial collage, visual poetry, but an absolute installation too has come into being. As usual, it is an offer to tune in, let particularities work within the whole, or to find a way which speaks to you only. But it is not like the author would not speak; on the contrary, she tries to name the world around her and also around us very precisely. She uses “ordinary” materials and techniques–plaster, natural materials, coins, casts, textile objects, embroidery; she shapes, combines, spins, listens to the inner tension, and tunes everything together, so that the objects find their exact and right places. The resulting spatial installation Untitled is not an autobiographical confession of the author, but a metaphor of the world and its current experiencing.
The work will be an original part of the already existing project Art in the Public Space. Fusion of art and architecture and its natural, albeit adequately ambitious shift.
