Artists’ documentation > Anča Daučíková > Portrait of a Woman with Institution – Monika Mitášová with The Bridging of the SNG [Slovak National Gallery]

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Portrait of a Woman with Institution – Monika Mitášová with The Bridging of the SNG [Slovak National Gallery], video, 14 m, Slovak/Czech, 2009

Exhibited: Care for Architecture: Asking the Arché of Architecture to Dance, Czech and Slovak Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale, 2016

Monika Mitášová (b. 1968) is writer, art critic, architect, and theoretician of architecture. She is currently associate professor at the Trnava University, Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Theory and History of Art.

Monika chose the building of Slovak National Gallery. In the late 1970s the National Gallery got an extension in the form of large modernist building, by the architect Vladimír Dedeček, connecting and somewhat overwhelming the two wings of the old baroque palace. It is known as The Bridging and served for temporary exhibits of contemporary art while the baroque part was dedicated to old art. After the change of régimes in 1989, there was a vociferous campaign to tear down the modernist addition. This, together with lack of funds, quickly resulted in the deterioration of the space and its closure for more than 15 years and the expectation it would be demolished for safety reasons. Mitášová started using this space for temporary architecture exhibitions and student projects as a form of resistance against the apathy and hostility of the public and authorities. We decided to document this situation and explain once again the unique qualities of this modernist reformulation of the National Gallery building in perspective of both possible developments, the demolition and the renovation. The texts in the video are fragments from Mitášová’s book, which I find a splendid example of écriture féminine.