25.7. - 14.9. 2025
Artists: Pavlína Fichta Čierna, Mark Ther, Viktor Frešo
Curator: Vladimír Beskid
The exhibition AUTOREPORT presents a current reflection on themes of identity, self-portrait, and gender issues through a shared Czech-Slovak dialogue among three mid-career artists: Pavlína Fichta Čierna, Mark Ther, and Viktor Frešo. The show also offers a spectrum of contemporary media and approaches – from object and installation to photography and moving image in the form of artist videos. At the same time, it provides a mapping of the artists’ visual progress (a metaphorical "auto-report") over the past decade.
Pavlína Fichta Čierna has long focused on issues of social exclusion, the body, transgender identity, and vulnerability. Her work moves between documentary, personal expression, and conceptual art. In the video My Nanotools or Secret Rules on the Nature of Private Reflections (8 min., 2017), she explores the "correct setting" of one’s own body in an industrial environment through a feminist interpretation of cyborg femininity. The photo series I Forgive Myself (2024) and a distinctive installation of breath therapy encapsulated in glass titled Sighs of the National Gender (2025), combined with problematic legal codes, revisit sensitive themes of our traumatized society and the personal space within the public political arena.
Viktor Frešo, a Slovak intermedia artist, deliberately adopts bold stances, egocentric self-mediation, and elemental visual gestures. He presents a complete installation of his works Situation with Trapuľko, 2025 (from the Family Vintage series), premiering at the FOR MAAT gallery in Trenčín. Alongside an enlarged bound male figure – the mannequin Trapuľko (2025) – he also displays the characteristic self-portrait light object Neon Viki (2018) combining neon, glass, bucket, and clamp, as well as a wall object that merges his grandmother’s old mattress with a pop-metal construction (Madracík, 2022; Family Vintage series).
Mark Ther uses his videos to expose and challenge many societal taboos, particularly around the history of Sudeten Germans, and issues of gender identity and belonging. In his short early video My Pleasure (2003–04), the singer Madonna and opera diva Maria Callas (played by Ther himself) meet imaginatively as Callas helps Madonna find lodging in a fully booked hotel. The newer video Sortir k.rvo, čubko (2021) evokes the intimate nighttime atmosphere of Parisian brothels from the Baudelairean era and 19th-century poetry. His presentation is complemented by a series of drawings Untitled (2017–23) – a collection of intimate inner landscapes from specific locations around Broumov (Braunau), full of blooming meadows and dark forests, where tension arises between figures and landscape, as well as ironic tension between past and present.
PAVLÍNA FICHTA ČIERNA (b. 1967) is a Slovak visual artist, curator, educator, and activist. She lives and works in Žilina and Ostrava. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (1987–1993) and completed her doctoral studies at the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica (2013). Residencies: 2008 – International Symposium Klenová, Klatovy; 2009 – MQW MuseumsQuartier Vienna. Through media art, film, and interactive projects, she focuses on social exclusion, political questions, and personal trauma. Her long-term artistic interests include the body, identity, otherness, and vulnerability within both personal and societal contexts. She currently teaches at the Faculty of Education, Catholic University in Ružomberok, and the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Ostrava.
VIKTOR FREŠO (b. 1974 in Bratislava) is a Slovak intermedia artist who lives and works in Bratislava and Rusovce. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (1999–2001) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (2001–2005). He has founded several art groups: Ego Art, Fifthy-Fifthy Group, Biderfresh. Recent exhibitions: 2025 – Barvinskyj Art Gallery Vienna, GVUO Ostrava, Comma Gallery Bratislava; 2024 – MW Wroclaw, among others. His work is held in collections including: National Gallery Prague, GHMP Prague, Bulgarian National Gallery Sofia, SNG Bratislava, GJK Trnava, NG Nitra, VSG Košice.
MARK THER (b. 1979) is a Czech multimedia artist based in Prague. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1998–2005). His work consistently addresses themes of alienation, the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, and questions of identity, sexual and gender orientation. Awards: 2011 – Cyprián Award – Biennial of Young Art Scooter, GJK Trnava; 2011 – Jindřich Chalupecký Award, Prague. Grant: 2004 – The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York. Recent exhibitions: 2025 – Herren, Karpuchina Gallery, Prague; 2024 – Na dvorečku..., GJK Trnava; 2024 – Body in the Body, Atrium Gallery Žižkov, Prague.
VLADIMÍR BESKID (b. 1962) is a Slovak art historian and curator living and working in Trnava and Bratislava. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts at Comenius University, Bratislava (1985), and has undertaken study stays in Switzerland, Poland, and France. His focus is on 20th- and 21st-century art. Over several decades, he has curated more than 70 exhibitions in Slovakia and abroad, including at the National Gallery in Prague, Ludwig Museum Budapest, Strabag Kunstforum Vienna, Olivier Waltman Gallery Paris, GVUO Ostrava, SNG Bratislava, GJK Trnava, Kunsthalle Bratislava, and Kunsthalle Košice.