Exhibition: Group Exhibition
Curators: Kristína Jarošová and Patrick Steinhauser
Location: ZOYA Gallery, Slovakia
Date: 2024
…AND QUIETLY THE NIGHT ARRIVES.
The exhibition …AND QUIETLY THE NIGHT ARRIVES presents twelve international artists exploring perspectives on the aesthetics of darkness, melancholy, mythology, and imagination. In a symbolic and surreal manner, the night serves as a metaphor through which ordinary modes of perception are disrupted and hidden aspects of existence are revealed. As Jean-Luc Nancy writes in The Ground of the Image, the nocturnal is a space where forms slip from their anchorages and, to a certain extent, become invisible. In this realm, the impossibility of seeing coincides with the possibility of imagining—challenging our perceptions to open toward alternative ways of thinking and understanding.
With imagination unleashed and the boundaries of reality blurred, these artists delve into the depths of thought, dreams, the subconscious, and memory through diverse strategies of creation, recontextualization, manipulation, and appropriation. Drawing on rich sources of inspiration, a strong pictorial sensibility, and refined craftsmanship, they question fixed truths while emphasizing the importance of forming new contexts and identities.
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Through their thought-provoking and visually striking works, the artists explore the interplay between fantasy and reality, the conscious and the unconscious, past and present, authenticity and imitation, as well as the shifting boundaries of identity. Poetically yet powerfully, they illuminate humanity’s obscure corners—raising themes of power structures, social inequality, and the intricate relationships between humans, history, and nature.
These ephemeral, intense situations often portray figures suspended in a disjointed space-time continuum, seemingly detached from linear or passing time. Wandering without fixed narratives or directions, they reflect the contradictory moods of society and evoke feelings of estrangement, vulnerability, and melancholy. As Theodor W. Adorno observed in Minima Moralia, such emotions arise in response to the contradictions and injustices embedded in the social order. The impact of capitalist structures and bureaucratic systems can be sensed in the mourning for lost human connection, suppressed creativity, and the erosion of individuality within a homogenized culture. Within this context, the artists unravel the intimate bond between personal experience and the societal forces that shape it.
The works in this exhibition ignite curiosity, stimulate imagination, and spark critical reflection. They open pathways beyond the familiar and the expected, using the symbolism of night as a portal into transformation and creative depth. By revealing what lies hidden in darkness, the artists invite us to look beyond the surface—to inhabit a liminal space where the known collapses, and new possibilities begin to emerge.
Text: Kristína Jarošová