Oskár Čepan

EDUCATION: 2010/2014 – Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Department of Intermedia, (Art.D.); 2005/2010 – Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Department of Intermedia, (Mgr.art); 2000/2005 – University of Presov, Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences, Department of Arts, (Mgr.); 2011 – Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna/AT, Doctoral research scholarship (awarded by Ministry of Education of Slovak Republic); 2009 – Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, Department of Fine Arts/USA; 2007 – Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw/PL, Erazmus Program;

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS: 2020 – Madrid solo/duo show with Ivan Gallery Bucharest, Madrid/ESP; 2019 – We don’t know that we know, huntkastner Prague in cooperation with Ivan Gallery/CZ; Circular Rectangle, Kunst im Kreuzgang, St Jodokus, Bielefeld/DE; 2018 – About Books, Gallery AlbumArte, Rome/IT; I found it somewhere but I cannot find it, At Home Gallery, site specific installation in old synagogue, Samorin/SK; Situation 50, Gallery Klatovy Klenova/CZ; There are more things, Gallery Kabinet T, Zlín/CZ; 2017 – MISSING SOMETHING AND ITSELF MISSING, Ivan Gallery Bucharest/RO; In Someone’s Else Dream, SODA Gallery Bratislava/SK; Situation After the Arrival of the Warning Patrol, East Slovak Gallery Kosice/SK; The Hacked Dream, SPZ Gallery Prague/CZ;...

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS: 2020 – Illusion and the Virtual Reality in Art, Gallery Medium, Bratislava/SK; ARTISSIMA - UNPLUGGED Torino, with Soda Gallery/IT; Separation of Trust, Soda Gallery, Bratislava/ SK; 2019 – The Portnet of Light (with Lucia Tkacova), Gallery of Jozef Kollár, Banská Štiavnica/SK; History is His Story, NEST ruimte voor kunst, The Hague/NL; SIGNAL - The Story of Slovak (Post)conceptual Art, Ludwig Museum, Budapest/HU; IDEAL CITY, Eindhoven Footnotes of Onomatopee Projects, Onomatopee, Eindhoven/NL; Traveling to the End, National Museum of Modern and Contemorary Art, ChangDong, Seoul/KR; Miart Milan, Selection of Soda Gallery/IT; Operative and External Memory, Gallery Medium, Bratislava/SK; Operative and External Memory, Bellart Gallery, Vienna/AT; Double Library, site specific installation in collaboration with Moravska Galerie in Brno and Masaryk University/CZ; Trh nikdy nespí, site specific installation, SOGA Bratislava/SK; 2018 – Unknowing Knowns | Knowing Unknowns, The National Museum of Art, Bucharest/RO; Probe 1 / The Story of Slovak (Post)conceptual Art, Prague City Gallery/CZ; KATALOG ENTROPII SZTUKI, Gallery Entropia and Library of University of Warsaw/PL; I created the line, SODA Gallery, Bratislava/SK; We the People, Central Slovakian Gallery, Banská Bystrica/SK; Clouds Bratislava, public art project, White Night, in collaboration with Ilona Németh and Marian Ravasz/SK; The Last Amazonian Congress, Polana/SK; LISTE Art Fair Basel, selection of Ivan Gallery/CH; SO(n)DA, conceptual tendencies, P74 gallery Ljublana/SLO; Algoritmy obrazov, obrazy algoritmov, Gallery Medium, Bratislava/SK; Triennal of Small Object and Drawing, Gallery of Jozef Kollár, Banská Štiavnica/SK;...

AWARDS, ARTIST RESIDENCES & FESTIVALS: 2010 – Finalist of Oskar Cepan Award (YVAA); 2009 – 950 Greene Ave Residency (Futura Project Prague), New York/USA; Art Residency, Castel Trebesice/CZ; 2008 – Finalist of Oskar Cepan Award (YVAA);...

Statement

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Curatorial statement

Varga finds in creative working the platform for thorough search of phenomena which affect him somehow: whether through personal experience, individual or historical memory, or direct, nothing determined by fascination. His work is conscious, or rather purposive. As the research itself counts with the higher degree of a rational approach to the issue, it consists of such methods which operate it. Based on his own methodical processes Varga creates to a certain extent critical and committed projects with highly visible sociological penetrations within which he stay in the role of both a figurant and a researcher. The approach to the creative work is at the same time the depiction of his personal setting as far as his perceiving of surrounding reality is concerned. Through the form which Varga assigns to his outputs he conceptualizes his findings into the final shapes. They are often maps, video recording, site-specific, slideshow or text. However, under the veil of a seeming formal sternness there is a great portion of romanticism which cannot be denied to the author’s perceiving and viewing on reflected themes.

Lucia Gavulová (COČ co-ordinator), June 2010