Matej Krén BOOKS / Mnemocinema

Museum of Modern Art
NOVEMBER 12. 2020 - MAY 23. 2021

Matej Krén (1958) is one of the few Slovak artists whose work has gained significant international recognition. His book rotunda Gravity mixer became an essential part of the Czech Pavilion exhibition at EXPO 2000 in Hannover. It is widely known to the general public thanks to its installation IDIOM, which was permanently placed in the vestibule of the Municipal Library in Mariánské Square in Prague in 1998. The installation, which is made up of approximately 20,000 books, is a symbol of infinite knowledge and the author has won the most awards for it. This installation is followed by one of the two projects presented by the exhibition Matej Krén Books / Paintings in June 2020 at the Olomouc Museum of Art, PASÁŽ MNEMOCINEMAA.

In the PASSAGE OF MIGHTS, which is a direct reference to the Passage Project (2004), the real matter of the book is removed and the original frame of thought becomes modern virtual passage with a pretended book presence due to modern technology and illusory moving projection on LCD monitors.

The second project, called AMNITURE, is an exhibition of objects created from discarded books that have gone through a destructive process stopped just before their destruction. The selection of exhibits, their spatial arrangement, lighting and the whole structure of the installation of the project is significantly changing, increasing, but always encounters the tight frame of a real exhibition space.

Exhibition | Matej Krén: Mnemocinema
Organizer | Olomouc Museum of Art, City Gallery of Bratislava
Date | November 12, 2020 – March 21, 2021
Author of the project | Matej Krén
Curators | Ivan Jančár, Kristína Zaťko Jarošová, Gina Renotière
Graphic design | Petr Šmalec