Miroslav Brooš: MB BANK. Environments

The site-specific exhibition is based on the artist’s long-running participative projects. The show presents Brooš’s work as a specific experience, a form of contextual perception and movement within the socio-environmental space. The artist calls for mutual communication, recognition and cooperation. The exhibition is presented as part of the Themes dramaturgical cycle of exhibitions. 

Miroslav Brooš (*1952, Poprad) is a renowned figure in the world of textile and fibre art both in Slovakia and beyond whose creative work is based on conceptual principles with the crucial participatory moment. He works in ongoing cycles which take on different senses in each exhibition or non-exhibition space; underpinned by a sense of processuality, his art is a “becoming” which changes and evolves. The artist’s fundamental concept is that of environment, the inherent value of material (often recycled), and above all interpersonal relationships in which the formation of active perception is a distinctive type of social communication.   

The title of the exhibition refers to the Miroslav Brooš Bank, which is not, as we might assume, a financial institution but is instead a form of sharing as a gesture of collective belonging. The artist primarily works with found, recycled and upcycled materials which touch upon the issues of “high” and “low” in both a cultural and social context. No less significant that the resulting artefacts or installations are the processes themselves, which serve, conversely, as grounds for exploring the specific relationships between life and art. The essence of the creative process lies in relationships, conversations and cooperation. In his artistic activities, Brooš influences society through the individual in a non-confrontational manner, posing fundamental questions about life and reminding us of its transient nature, its fragility, mutability and unique beauty. The exhibition is divided into four sections, all of which bear environmental and socio-cultural significance: The Gift… of Earth, Eco… Water… Falls, My Place and Ours, and the Sea of Virtual Connections. The individual sections contain within themselves both a continuation of the artist’s ongoing creative cycles and moments of participation.

Mgr. art. Katarína Balúnová, ArtD., exhibition curator

About the artist
Miroslav Brooš (*1952, Poprad) is an artist for whom life and art naturally intertwine. He works in various media ranging from object art, painting, installation and performance to the formation of complex environments. A wide array of elementary, natural and found materials, such as soil, stone, paper, textile and wood, are used to emphasise their volatility in time and space. From 1975 to 1980 he studied under Prof. M. Varbanov, Prof. D. Balev, M. Josifova and Prof. I. Ignatov at the Department of Textile – Art and Design at the National Academy of Art in Sofia, Bulgaria. His work has been exhibited regularly in internationally respected galleries and institutions (England, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, China, Denmark, France, Canada, Lithuania, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Austria, Russia, Spain, Italy, Ukraine and the USA). His work has been shown in more than twenty solo exhibitions both in Slovakia and abroad, and he has participated in several international symposia focused on paper art, free textile work, painting and land art. His art has also featured as part of several renowned exhibitions of contemporary art. From 1986 to 2010, Miroslav Brooš lectured at the Faculty of Arts at the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, where he was also head of the Department of Visual Arts from 1995 to 2005. Since 2010 he has worked at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica where he leads the Studio of Soft Sculpture and the Studio of Experimental Production at the Department of Sculpture. In 2011 he was appointed as a Professor of Fine Art. The artist lives and works in Banská Bystrica.