Rita Koszorús has a long-term cooperation with the Olomouc Telegraph, which developed last year during her residency. At the end of it, she held an Open Studio for the public, created author graphics and gave our building a new face with a large-scale mural on the facade. Alongside these outputs, however, her professional and personal bonding with Telegraph Gallery producer Erika Kovačičová also played a significant role.
From their never-ending debates, a project gradually took shape, which they presented together in Bratislava. The exhibition Syndrome of Daydreaming in the intimate space ATELIER XIII does not follow the residency at the Telegraph, but materializes their resulting closeness and understanding. The very concept of the exhibition reflects their long conversations, which often raised more questions than answers. This preoccupation with the search for security, a sense of home, and one’s own identity thus became the fundamental philosophical and visual principle of the entire project. This motif is not only reflected in the visual form of the exhibition, but also in the curatorial text. It has been interspersed with questions designed to deliberately confuse the reader, but at the same time to keep them on their toes.
The installation in ATELIER XIII immediately draws the viewer into this search, especially with the unorthodox way in which the space itself is conceived. The use of a low-set shelf on the wall, for example, forces the visitor to bend down and approach the works physically and with attention. Here, Rita Koszorús presents classical canvases, but also creates new dimensions in the space through the use of paper and collage. She has let some paper formats fall freely to the floor or unexpectedly emerge from behind the finished works. The whole arrangement of the room deliberately gives the impression of a work in progress, as if the visitor has just peered into the artist's studio and is viewing the works freely spread around the space. For the duration of the exhibition, a musical set was accompanied by songs from the album TOON by producer Monika Šubrtová.
For Rita Koszorús (1989) this entry into space is a natural continuation of what she has been doing in her work for a long time. The Bratislava-based artist, who won the VÚB Painting of the Year Award in 2021, combines painting, collage and non-traditional materials in her works, deliberately disrupting established modes of perception. Her works move between abstraction, fragment and personal visual narrative, sometimes with a dreamlike or slightly surreal touch. Layering, illusion and working with collage play an important role in these works, which she sees not only as a technique but also as a principle of composing memory and experience. This is also why her work often crosses the boundary of the classical two-dimensional image and enters into space. Through form, she then opens up themes of nostalgia, memory, identity, the search for life's certainties and the fragility of home.
The curator of the exhibition, Erika Kovačičová (*1997), brings to the project experience from her everyday gallery practice and from her close collaboration with contemporary artists. At Telegraph Gallery, she coordinates exhibitions, public lectures, residencies and the production of short documentary films, while also curating selected exhibitions. In addition to her gallery duties and curatorial practice, she has a personal practice that includes drawing, printmaking and photography. He often works with language as a medium, which he then projects into his works, either in the form of original writings or passages taken from literary works.
The exhibition Syndrome of Daydreaming at ATELIER XIII in Bratislava ran from 30 January to 13 March 2026.
