Look What’s Growing Under My Bed

Written by: Lucia Kotvanová, Kristián Šmelko

You can view the photo report from the exhibition here

Under the bed is a dark and unsettling place — a space where monsters used to hide in childhood.

Isn’t it the same in adulthood? Only now, we place them there ourselves. Piles of things replace crumbs and dust that clings to them. We hide what we don’t want to see, what we don’t want to think about. Everything we don’t want in plain sight — our anxieties, unpleasant memories, worries, troubles, but also unfulfilled desires, dreams, or goals. What kind of treasure are we sleeping on?

If we hide something under the bed, it may be counterproductive… it may grow down there…

In this exhibition, you will see works that we once put aside — in their earliest stages or as unfinished ideas. Subconsciously, they continued to grow, until they outgrew that hidden space and reached this point. These are ideas that are now sticking out from beneath the bed.

This is their current reality — shaped not only by our subjective inner experience, but also by the reflections of social encounters and intersections around us, which directly influence our lives.

The bed itself is a rather lascivious metaphor: it represents intimacy, sleep, vulnerability, the subconscious — a place where we carry what is secret and private. Life is not the way we imagine it, nor is it meant to be. That is why the works we pull out from under the bed no longer retain their original form. They have grown. They have changed.

The exhibition addresses inner experience, social phobias, and fears that every person carries within themselves to varying degrees.

An important part of the project is an authorial intervention into the exhibition space itself. The overgrown works transform, adapt, and become site-specific objects — here and now.

We have crawled out from under the bed not only with our artworks, but also in our own skin. The concept of the exhibition opens up a contemporary discourse about the roles of curator, artist, and other collaborators within exhibition-making. Provocatively, we — the exhibiting artists — become our own curators, blurring the boundaries between these roles. Where is the line between art and curatorship? Isn’t the curatorial text itself an authored artwork?

We curate one another. Together, we move somewhere forward… We create a space for trials that we set for ourselves. We may be wrong — and that is okay.

The exhibition project is rooted in three key works. Lucia Kotvanová’s piece “I Wanted to Make a Hole in the World, but I Realized the World Is Already One Big Hole” depicts drying men’s underwear, stitched between the legs with brown thread. Created during the pandemic, it symbolically condenses the artist’s frustration and her struggle with life roles.

Kotvanová, together with Lucia Čarnecká and Anna Mihóková, is also the co-author of the second work, “Absence,” which represents an inner monologue — a stream of thoughts in public and private environments. It is a testimony to hectic self-reflection on life and obligations. This work, in particular, takes on a new form in the exhibition: its current growth from beneath the bed.

Kotvanová’s key collaborator in the exhibition becomes Kristián Šmelko, whom she approached based on his previous curatorial work. She was drawn to his performance “Buckling Knees,” which confronts social phobia by exposing the artist directly to contact with his own fear.

Lucia Kotvanová

An artist, curator, and gallery educator. She studied at Trnava University, Faculty of Education, in Animation of Visual Arts (BA), and later at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava in Studio IN (MA). She has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and in 2014 exhibited at the Young Art Biennale in Moscow.

She is also involved in co-organizing exhibitions and cultural events of young contemporary art in alternative and public spaces, such as the Sirotinec in Modra, the exhibition Voľný termín, collaborations with the association Verejný podstavec, and others.

Her primary focus is mediating visual art to diverse audiences through gallery education. She previously worked at Kunsthalle Bratislava, where she co-published two books with Daniela Čarná. She currently works at the Slovak National Gallery.

In her practice, she actively engages with the discourse of “art of collaboration,” working across media — primarily site-specific works, installations, video art, and performance — addressing the inner world in confrontation with public life.

Kristián Šmelko

An artist, student, musician, and lyricist. He studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava in the studio VVV (Visual, Verbal, Public). As an artist, he has participated in several group exhibitions, including Sirotinec in Modra (2023), the multigenerational group exhibition OSVIT in Bratislava (2022), and the exhibition () at Špirála under the Powder Tower in Bratislava, together with Kasha Potrohosh.

He is also actively involved in leading the band Krtko Bain a kamaráti, where he performs as singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He currently works at the Slovak National Gallery.

In his visual practice, he primarily combines the media of music and text in connection with performance and installation. Conceptually, he focuses on phenomena of lived experience — outer and inner activities — and humor.