Oskár Čepan

EDUCATION: 2005 – 2011 / Academy of Fine Art and Design, Bratislava; 2008 / Newcastle University, Fine Arts; 2011 – 2012 / Comenius University - Faculty of Mathematics, Bratislava; 2012 – 2015 / Doctorate - Academy of Fine Art and Design, Bratislava;

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS: 2020 – Model for Extinction Survival: Take to the Sky; Our Future in the Desert, MAGMA Contemporary, Sfantu Gheorghe; Elves are Leaving the Forest, Kabinet T, Zlín; 2019 – In a world without facts only goodness remains, Trafó Gallery, Budapest; Keck I-II., ETC Gallery, Prague; Three temptations in the Desert, Galerie Blanská; Aeronoos, Schemnitz Gallery, Banská Štiavnica; Days in the Desert, AtHome Gallery, Samorín; Newton, Soyuz Gallery online, Pescara; 2018 – A Case of Pluto, Karlin Studios: Futura, Prague; Three Lessons, Óbudai Társaskör Galéria, Budapest; Definitively unfinished (as guest to Dalibor Bača), Synagogue Žilina; 2017 – Warm Earth Faint Sound (w M. Piaček); SNM - Múzeum kultúry Maďarov na Slovensku , Bratislava; What can we learn.., City Gallery, Levoča; Voldemort, KinoArt, Brno; 2016 – New Horizons, Kabinet T, Zlín; Light of the World, Berlinskej Model, Praha; 2015 – 3 Versions (w M. Piaček & J. Mydla), Krokus Gallery, Bratislava; Videostuff. On Demand, Soda Gallery, Bratislava; Race Against Time (w M. Smetana), Galerie SPZ, Praha; 2014 – Council of Eternally Existing, Athome Gallery Samorin; On the Stage (w I. Németh & Z. Žabková), The Gallery Apart, Roma; On Peripheral Orbit (w Kassa Boys), Chimera Project, Budapest; 2012 – Pootvorenie, Kunstahalle - Nova Synagoga, Zilina;...

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS: 2020 – Technology of the Sacred, Display, Praha; Illusion and Virtual Reality, Galéria Médium, Bratislava; volba.2050.world, Nová Cvernovka, Bratislava; 2019 – Techné, Galerie NTK Praha, Praha; ORIENT V, Art House, Colloredo-Mansfeldský palác, Praha; Sen o výstavě, Galerie NoD, Praha; H6T KUNST, Miskolci Galéria, Miskolc; Memory, Galere Médium, Bratislava; Mystics of Hygene, Oblastní galerie, Liberec, (w Ilona Németh & Lucia Tkáčová); Čas tuhne inde, Galérie J. Kollára, Banska Štiavnica; 2018 – Conditions of impossibility VII. Psychopathology of the Planet, Galeria Cursor, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Prague, Prague; MEDZIHMLA 2018, Lučenec; Transart Communication 30 Anniversary, Nove Zamky; Structures /Illusions /Interactions, Budavári Mikve, Budapest; I am not here, I am in arkadia, Nitrianská Galéria, Nitra;...

AWARDS, ARTIST RESIDENCES & FESTIVALS: 2019 – Tatra Banka Foundation - Award for Young Visual Artist; 2018 – Novum Foundation Award; 2017 – Art in General, Visegrad Fund artist Residency, New York; Award of New Visions, Štyri živly, film festival, Banská Štiavnica 2014 – Museums Quartier Residency, Transit.sk, Wien; Malba 2014, 3rd place; Ostrale, Dresden; 2013 – Art Quartier Budapest - Visegrad Fund Artist Residency, AQB, Budapest; 2012 Award of the I. International Festival of Experimental films and Digital Art, Bratislava; Martin Benka Award; 2011 – Galerie Jelení - Visegrad Fund Artist Residency, Czech Center For Contemporary Art, Prague; 2009 – ISCP New York, Foundation for Civic Society scholarship; Oskár Čepan Award Winner 2009, Young Visual Artists Awards; HIT Roka 2009, Awards of Galeria HIT, Bratislava; 2008 – Newcastle University, Fine Arts – scholarship;

Statement

Curatorial statement

András Cséfalvay (1986, Bratislava) studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, where he has been a teacher since 2014, having earned his doctor’s degree in 2015. His multimedia oeuvre focuses on the question of misuse of scientific knowledge which he sees as a form of power, and therefore as something that should be subject to oversight. He also questions the accepted forms of use of language. With his art, he strives to form a gap necessary to give us distance to investigate those phenomena that are presented to us as granted. Behind the seemingly absolute narratives of the world, he uncovers authorities and power games which it should be precisely art’s task to question. Formally, his projects take the shape of short films, installations, but also musical works that usually border on pathos or even kitsch. The artist’s approach is that of a Renaissance man and art as he understands it is closely tied to exact sciences, as documented by his (unfinished) studies of mathematics or the fact that the work he picked for the finalists’ exhibition was an opera, something he considers to be a total work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk). Cséfalvay does not shy away from major themes such as transience, pain, love, art, the evolution of life on Earth and the place of humanity in this tremendous process, or the threat of our extinction. The artist’s peculiarity lies in that he lends voice to subjects we do not normally even consider as such – planets, dinosaurs, or even silence. He won the Oskár Čepan Award in 2009. The finalists' exhibition took place in the Medium Gallery in Bratislava.