Květoslava Fulierova’s archive inhabits approximately two built-in wardrobes in her apartment. The archive is distributed in various cases, many of which are empty chocolate boxes. Every box embodies one year worth of archived material. Květa’s archive has thematic categories (in addition to the chronological division); themes such as work with amateurs, travels, exhibitions, family life etc. Alongside Koller’ process of collecting the ephemera—Květa’s work encompasses documenting and creating an archive of her personal life with Július. Whilst Július collected daily press, Květa would come home with heaps of photographs, which would not only end up in the family photo album; they would later undergo Július’ post-production. Koller is an explorer, whereas Květa is a meticulous photographer and archivist: possibly the best type of tandem. Koller saw the power in Květa’s photographs and moved it a step further. For Květoslava and Július, documenting the banal, ordinary moments of everyday life became a favored practice. The more ordinary the situation, the more exalted the formal administration became. One can observe several parallel, if somewhat contradictory endeavors in Koller’s work, which he develops simultaneously. He is even capable of creating artwork, with the intention of being sold in a shop (a commercial gallery called Dielo, the Slovak for “artwork”), which fulfills all the criteria of an artwork as a commodity. The political climate of the time, aiming for art to solely be a means of conveying political ideology or a purely decorative fixture, is in turn witness to art, which is authentic and existential—art, which simply has to be, because it is not created upon a condition or in any way economically entailed.

The private domestic space becomes a political one; and those everyday moments become historical.
My selection from Květa’s archive is mostly matters and items pertaining to her personal life: her, her mother Maria Zavadilová, her daughter Miriam and her grandchildren Miško and Martin. Even though the stories are personal and intimate, yet in a way also universal. The theme of my archive is maternity and it serves as a basis for Květa’s archive. It is printed in black and white A4 format and mounted on wooden panels. The images are not related, they are not part of a story line; nevertheless, our mind creates categories and sorts the images as an archivist would. It is essentially impossible to omit the analogy with the text, the story and our assessment of it. It is all there, even though we want to be free of it. To peer into an archive, to re-read an archive is as if an attempt to comprehend what liberty is; liberty as a consequence. The liberty to be able, to be adept—to the point of being unable to grasp the vastness of opportunities. (Petra Feriancová)

Exhibiting artist: Petra Feriancová

Curators: Check Your Head! project of the curatorial team of the OFF-Biennale Budapest (Nikolett Erőss, Anna Juhász, Hajnalka Somogyi, Tijana Stepanovic, Borbála Szalai, Katalin Székely, János Szoboszlai)

Venue: Viltin Gallery (1061 Budapest, Vasvári Pál u. 1.)