GROTESK – The common language of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe has been a geopolitical buffer zone for centuries and, as a result, the people who live here have had to learn to communicate by reading between the lines and laughing at their own impossible situations, giving rise to an unmistakably unique form of expression, the Eastern European grotesque.
Rather than focusing on the differences between the many peoples across the region – and the forgotten East–West divide left behind by the Cold War, which is becoming less and less relevant with globalization – the G.R.O.T.E.S.K photo project draws attention to what connects us. Through this publication and exhibitions in Czechia, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary in 2025, it highlights our common values by showcasing the best absurdist photographs from Eastern Europe!
The project is co-financed by the governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.
GROTESK – The common language of Eastern Europe
October 4–12, 2025
────────────────────────
Opening Event · October 4, 2025, 6:00 p.m.
────────────────────────
Artists ·
Hungary · Csilla Klenyánszki, Hórusz Archive (Sándor Kardos), Éva Szombat, László Török, Zsuzsi Uj
Czechia · Oskar Helcel, Dita Pepe, Iren Stehli
Slovakia · Andrej Balco, Martin Kollár, Zuzana Pustaiová, Viktor Šelesták
Poland · Zbigniew Libera, Natalia LL, Rafał Milach, Agnieszka Sejud
Romania · Mihai Barabancea, Tamás Hajdu
Ukraine · Alexander Chekmenev, Julie Poly
────────────────────────
Curators ·
István Virágvölgyi, Capa Center (Budapest, Hungary)
Sára Jeleňová, OFF Bratislava (Bratislava, Slovakia)
Světlana Malina, Fotograf Zone festival (Prague, Czech Republic)
Marta Szymańska, Fotofestiwal (Łódź, Poland)
────────────────────────
Venue · Holešovice Market, public space
(near Hall 24 on the Market Square side)
Bubenské nábř. 306, 170 00, Prague 7 Holešovice
Reveries For Fragile Beasts
We are pleased to invite you to the opening of Reveries For Fragile Beasts, featuring works by Apian and Sarah Dubná.
Tamara Moyzes & Shlomi Yaffe – GOLEMET (Epigenetika)
The exhibition GOLEMET by Tamara Moyzes and Shlomi Yaffe will open at the Fotograf Zone Gallery on Tuesday, April 21 at 6 PM, as part of the Video Room program. The opening will take place concurrently with the exhibition Reveries For Fragile Beasts. The exhibition Golemet presents an artistic and conceptual framework that understands inherited trauma not as a metaphor, but as a lived, embodied reality. Drawing on contemporary research in epigenetics and trauma studies, the project approaches memory as something carried in the body—activated in moments of rupture, threat, and renewed exclusion.
Dialogues on Art Reproductions: I. Lick Your Finger, Turn the Page
Reproduction as an object we come into physical contact with. Touch as a mode of perception that returns the image to our hands.