Close Things / DENISA LEHOCKÁ

This is how it was meant to be

The object chosen by Denisa Lehocká is a constellation of three elements. At our meeting, she took them out of her bag and placed them on a park bench, one on top of the other:
sort of a vase
a strange oblong natural object the colour of bone
a thick dark brown stick

The ceramic object was given to her by her friend Juraj Johanides. It was made in Slovakia, it is not known when, nor who made it, but the author is forever present by touch: on the lower edge of the vase there are traces of the fingers of the hand that at some point dipped it in the glaze.
The other two objects were brought by Boris Ondreička, Denisa’s husband, from the Danish art group Superflex. They belong together: the tongue of the Amazonian fish Pirarucu, which is all covered with tiny teeth, is used by the locals to grind various seeds into flour or powder. For example, guarana seeds, preserved by smoke into a hard mass like this.

“We’ve had it like this at home for a few years now. I put the objects on top of each other and they stay that way. I can’t imagine it any other way.”

This “haiku” of Denisa’s is a poetry of material, form, and something else that eludes words.
Perhaps it is the space between cultures and traditions that reside in objects, invisible but powerfully present, radiating. And also the beauty of the improbability that these three things will one day find themselves in the same place, and look as if they have always belonged together.

Denisa LEHOCKÁ (1971, Trenčín, Czechoslovakia)
She lives and works in Bratislava, Slovakia. She studied at the Secondary School of Art and Industry and then at the Academy of Fine Arts both in Bratislava. Among many exhibited her works at the Venice and Prague and Kiev Biennials, or Manifesta-3 in Ljubljana, SI, October Salon, Belgrade, SRB, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, DE, Kunstverein Ulm, DE, Frankfurter Kunstverein, DE, Württembergische Kunstverein, Stuttgart, DE, at Transmediale in Import and HKW, Berlin, DE, BAK Basis voor Actuele Kunst, Utrecht, NL, New Museum, NYC, USA, Austrian Cultural Forum, NYC, USA, DUMBO Art Cener, NYC, USA, White Columns, NYC, USA, at SNG, Bratislava, transit. sk, Bratislava, National Gallery in Prague, CZ, Futura, Prague, CZ and Fajt Brno, CZ, Museum of Modern Art, St Etienne, F, Sammlung Friedrichshof, Vienna, AT, MUMOK-Stiftung Ludwig Vienna AT, Kunsthaus Graz Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, AT, Palazzo delle arti Napoli, Naples, IT, Kunsthalle Basel, Basle, CH, Kunsthaus Bern, CH. She is represented in many international collections.