Work as a Trace as a Place 

Martin Piaček
29.04 – 14.06.2025

exhibition orchestrator
Anetta Mona Chișa
essay by Jan Zálešák

This exhibition brings together several years of engagement with the soft and the solid, tracing material journeys mapped in stone: from limestone to crystalline form, from mountain to studio, from raw block to sculpted object. It also considers the environmental histories embedded in each piece—the void left behind in the quarry, the dust inhaled by the artist, the uncertain future of these forms as they continue their material evolution.
For Martin Piaček, work is both imperative and duty—a calling and a compulsion. It demands bodily presence, drawing on physical strength and emotional resilience. His practice embraces slowness, repetition, and vulnerability, deliberately resisting the speed and detachment of digital fabrication. The sculptor’s body becomes an extension of his tools, where thought and touch converge into a singular, continuous act. In this space, mind and material shape one another, beyond the limits of intention or control.
(Anetta Mona Chișa)

Martin Piaček (SK) is an artist, educator, and head of the VVV Studio (Visual–Verbal–Public) at the Department of Intermedia at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. Trained as a sculptor, he works across various media to critically re-examine traditional sculptural techniques, materials, and the politics of monuments. His practice explores themes of memory, national myths, and, more recently, environmental histories. Beyond his artistic and pedagogical work, Piaček is active in curatorial projects, public space interventions, and civic initiatives such as Public Pedestal, DiStO, and KU .BA. He is currently involved in the Freedom Monument project in Veľká Mača and leads the discoursive platform Liquid Dogmas.

Anetta Mona Chişa is an artist whose practice spans installation, video, performance, and sculpture, deeply engaging with themes of materiality, and interdisciplinarity. Born in Romania and based in Prague, she approaches the world through a lens of attentiveness, seeking to experience reality as a continuous flow rather than a collection of discrete objects governed by physical laws.