Július Koller & Květa Fulierová

The work of Slovak artist Július Koller (1939-2007) questions the possibilities of art to create relationships between humans and establish a better life in our societies. His two manifestos, Anti-Happening (1965) and UFO (1970) highlight his interests in the programmatic aspect of everyday objects, automatic and infinite aesthetics, imagination and cosmos' mysteries. His production illustrates the various topics of his personal mythology: science and traditions, ideas and beliefs. To face the complexity of the historical process, Július Koller gives his work a cosmic dimension where contradictions between utopia and real life are seen through the subjective prism of the future. The failure of Czech socialism as a Third way and the ideological and social void which emerged from it led Koller to create parallel universes (the most accomplished examples being “UFO-nauts” and “Ping-Pong Club”) as a form of resistance against totalitarianism.