Archívy L - MAG D A

Essay / LEVELS OF FREEDOM

old-new uncertainties – overcrowding and living side by side – urban attractiveness and its flip side – why to develop urban diversity – the disappearing heterogeneity of the city – deviations, escapes and heterotopias – the adaptability of the maladjusted – parallel histories and the need to democratize the design and planning process – complexity and the big effect of small changes – dynamic rootedness and the possibilities of transgression

Conversation / DEAR ANNA, DEAR DANICA

Anna Cséfalvay and Danica Pišteková, two members of the architectural studio WOVEN, have a continuous (e-mail) dialogue about things between themselves and architecture that are timely for them. The first part is about producing and questioning.

by Anna Cséfalvay, Danica Pišteková

Essay / ON THE ILLUSIONS OF PERMANENCE

A walk to Dana Tomečková's thinking

Essay / ABOUT WORDS THAT START WITH E

Aesthetics, aestheticization, ethics, ecology, environment – these words appear in my notebook in many places recently. I also meet them more and more frequently in the discourse on contemporary art, but often in very special relationships and connections. Therefore, I decided to look for a link between them and connect them so that the initial letter is not their only connection.

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: THE LOVELIEST TRICK OF THE DEVIL

For his closing column on Spike, Dean Kissick wonders if the last six years have indeed been spiraling downward – and what’s to come next. Balenciaga rejects outrage, Kanye is a Nazi, everyone is a satanist, the color of the year is primordial invocation of joy, Donald Trump and Alex Jones are voices of reason. It’s either the end of doom, or a whole new era of worse-still derangement.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: NEW YORK’S 2022 FALL SHOWS

In this month’s installment of “The Downward Spiral,” Dean Kissick writes a roundup of New York’s fall exhibitions. They are many, so many, and pleasant, so pleasant, as palliatives for a doomed dying world.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / DOWNWARD SPIRAL: THE REHEARSAL

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: TEXT-TO-IMAGE

In this month’s installment of “The Downward Spiral,” Dean Kissick reflects on the literary nature of AI-generated images.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE MAN FROM DETVA AND BRNO

(Slovenčina) Nábytok a interiéry Dušana Jurkoviča

by Viera Kleinová

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: TASTE, FIGURES, IMAGES

Some years ago, I went out with some friends to Trisha’s, a basement bar in Soho in London, and after a few drinks a stylist, quite austere, softly spoken, leant over to me and asked quietly, “Do all the bad designers, know that they’re bad?” That’s a question I’ve often wondered myself. And today it’s so hard to tell the difference, and the boundaries between good and bad have disappeared.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / Miloš Laky (1948 – 1975)

A biographical sketch and contribution to the social history of the Slovak neo-avant-garde in the early 1970s.

by Fedor Blaščák

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: 59TH VENICE BIENNALE

Is the 59th Venice Biennale the final chapter of an exhausted story? In his May column, Dean Kissick ponders how identity became the biggest elephant in the rooms of mega exhibitions, and how to abandon our screens for the real world and the real world for dreams.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / PROJECT OF RECOGNITION

by Gabriela Smetanová

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: EUROPE

Dean Kissick corresponds with two young arts workers from Ukraine – Kateryna Tykhonenko and Valeria Schiller – who share firsthand accounts of the war that is currently unfolding.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: NEW EARTH 3

(Slovenčina) Dead Kissick tentoraz prináša podobenstvo alebo proroctvo.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / ON NATURE AND OUR PLACE IN IT

Essay / COMMON SPACE

On public space and critical art

by Gabriela Smetanová

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: FIVE YEARS

With nostalgia taking hold at The New Museum Triennial and MoMA PS1’s survey of Greater New York, Dean Kissick wonders: what’s so great about it? When art gets sucked back into tradition, where is the future to be found?

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: PERSONA (PART I)

Are we human, or are we content? Dean Kissick ponders Demna Gvasalia, Donda, the cult of celebrity, and the actual occult in this month’s Downward Spiral.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: LEAVE SOCIETY

Dean Kissick returns from his summer hiatus (ascetic, solitary research, perhaps?), restored and brimming with renewed hope. Eat vegetables, get Tao Lin-pilled, and revel in the beauty of the universe: the modern-day equivalent of "turn on, tune in, drop out"?

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: THE ART PARTY CAROUSEL

This May, Dean goes to Frieze, rolls his eyes at the Turner Prize shortlist, and sees New York opening up again.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: RETURN TO TRADITION

Dean Kissick goes to the Frick Madison on a beautiful spring day.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: POPULAR THINGS

You can run but you can’t hide. Dean Kissick on NFTs and the pervasiveness of mundane art.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / A FLAW IN THE SYSTEM OF THE IDEAL CITY

by Katarína Janíčková , Danica Pišteková

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: ANIMALS

For his first column of the new year, Dean Kissick finds solace and good omens in ornithology. The future looks not altogether unpromising.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: 2020

DEAN KISSICK reviews a long year.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: CENTRIST DAD OUROBOROS

A lot’s changed in New York since we last heard from Dean in October. A president was elected and fresh plywood added to store façades, quickly blanketed in new graffiti hearts. Hope and the 5G conspiracy are pretty tricky things.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: ZOMBIE FIGURATION AND THE DEATH RITUAL

It’s fall so Dean goes on a gallery tour of Manhattan.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: FALL

DEAN’s latest column is an ode to the coming fall, where New York is struggles to bring normalcy back into play. But when was New York ever normal?

by Dean Kissick

Essay / CATASTROPHE

by Fedor Blaščák

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: AS I READ THE DECADE BRAIN

Dean takes us through the troubled beginnings of the 2020s, charting his own history in New York, and the timeline of events of the previous decade that brought us here. Writing is the best cure for amnesia.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: MAY DAYS

DEAN KISSICK was in New York when America rose up, and managed to both document and celebrate the protests that followed in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by the police.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: LITTLE PATCH OF YELLOW WALL

DEAN KISSICK is in search of lost rays of the sun, in paintings. There is a certain kind of light, and it still seems to show on Proust, Vermeer, and kitties?

by Dean Kissick

House / HLAVNÁ 25, BRATISLAVA

We talked about the house of Olga and Imrich Vanek with Svätopluk Mikyta (SM) and Zuzana Bodnárová (ZB) from Banská Stanica. The house was photographed in November 2015 by Hynek Alt. The interview was conducted by Ľubica Hustá.

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: THE COUNTRYSIDE

The countryside is synonymous with the desires for escape, health, self-sustainability, and many other things that might well describe the current mood under the threat of corona. DEAN KISSICK weighs in on one exhibition that presents the nether reaches as just that: somewhere far away.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: MANHATTAN

DEAN KISSICK writes from New York and the heart of the global pandemic. Nothing Dean or any of his friends say is medical advice.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / TRANSAPRENCY

(Slovenčina) Strnulý pohľad spoza záclony

by Fedor Blaščák

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: TWENTIES JOY

With the dawn of a new decade comes the possibility that all could start over, be good again. Why not? Dean Kissick takes us on a journey in search of exhiliration in art, theatre, and elsewhere. Follow his trek from Mexico to New York, out of the glum and into glam and glee.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / PUBLIC SPACE

What is the nature of a public space? Is it something bestowed objectively, or is it created subjectively? Is it an existing city space created by streets, squares, parks and public buildings; or is it a space for the constantly updated proceedings of free individuals? Does public space exist for us directly and unproblematically, given that the streets, squares, etc., are already there, or is it something that we bring about by our coordinated activities, by the expending of effort on the foundation of shared interests?

by Fedor Blaščák

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: THE DOWNWARD BANANA

by Dean Kissick

House / GORAZDOVA STREET 31

We have discussed the house of sculptor Erna Masarovičová and Štefan Kissoczy on Gorazdova Street 31 in Bratislava with its owner and current dweller Katarína Kissoczy. Photos taken by Ján Kekeli.

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: THE REAL WORLD

Dean reads Natasha Stagg’s new essay collection Sleeveless and Fiona Duncan’s debut novel Exquisite Mariposa and begins to understand the 2010s.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: THE TALENTED MR. GUWOP

Gucci’s new Cruise campaign, directed by Harmony Korine and Alessandro Michele, stars rapper Gucci Mane. Gucci Mane’s new album cover, shot by Harmony Korine and Alessandro Michele, stars Gucci. Pop continues to eat itself. Nothing means anything here, in the twilight of the 2010s.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL

Dean swims in the magic river. There’s a death on the island. And a visitor sails into the harbour.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL

(Slovenčina) Dean Kissick sa venuje embryonickým ľudoopím chiméram, ktoré stvorili genetici v Kalifornii. Je na čase sa znovu zamyslieť nad tým, čím by sme ešte mohli byť.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: A PHILOSOPHER’S BOAT IN SKJOLDEN

This month Dean Kissick goes to the Norwegian countryside, contemplates Ludwig Wittgenstein’s retreat from society and sees art’s return to its pagan origins in artist Marianne Heske’s latest project.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: PARADISE BY DIMES SQUARE

A love letter to Montez Press Radio from Dean Kissick.

by Dean Kissick

Interview / ARISTIDE ANTONAS

by Gabriela Smetanová

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: THE EUPHORIC CONSPIRACY

We’re all writing stories together now. Dean Kissick swims through the conspiracy theories surrounding Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: SHARJAH

This month, Dean Kissick went to the United Arab Emirates to visit Sharjah Biennial 14.

by Dean Kissick

by Fedor Blaščák

THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: NOT SO MUCH HORNY AS FULL OF DESPAIR

This month, Dean Kissick investigates what’s going on in Goshen, New York.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE PALACE AND POOL

by Gabriela Smetanová

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: PEARL RIVER DIARY

Dean visits the sixth Guangzhou Triennial, “As We May Think: Feedforward”, curated by Angelique Spaninks, Zhang Ga and Philipp Ziegler.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / PERMANENT RECREATION

" What seemed to be a short political crisis in 1992-1993 occurred to become an already 25 year lasting frozen conflict. Due to this conflict, in a short period of time, the original buildings, developed during the Soviet era for institutionalized collective spa recreation was by random, DIY participation process re-designed into the new permanent collective housing."

by Martin Zaiček

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: THE WORLD’S A STAGE

What has Dean learnt from the greatest city in the world?

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL

by Dean Kissick

On the utopian concept in architecture

by Gabriela Smetanová

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: PORTLAND

Dean Kissick visits Portland, Oregon for the Utopian Visions Art Fair

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: MY STRUGGLE

Dean Kissick reads Karl Ove Knausgård’s 1,153-page literary suicide note The End: My Struggle Book 6

by Dean Kissick

Essay / PALLADIO OF THE SUBURBS

by Daniel Tudor Munteanu and Davide Tommaso Ferrando

Interview / DESIGNER PETER LEHOCKÝ

by Boris Ondreička

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: THE CHINA CHALET GROUP

In this month's column Dean Kissick goes to a three-quarter-scale replica of an art bar in a gallery.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / NOWLESSNESS, Dyke

Essay deals with phenomenons of identity, relationships, normalising powers, temporality, queerness, queer art, the Anthropocene, the climate change, the apocalypse etc...The whole essay consists of four chapters which are published separately as a four-part serie.

by Ľuboš Kotlár

Essay / NOWLESSNESS, Lovers

Essay deals with phenomenons of identity, relationships, normalising powers, temporality, queerness, queer art, the Anthropocene, the climate change, the apocalypse etc...The whole essay consists of four chapters which are published separately as a four-part serie.

by Ľuboš Kotlár

Essay / NOWLESSNESS, Gaia

Essay deals with phenomenons of identity, relationships, normalising powers, temporality, queerness, queer art, the Anthropocene, the climate change, the apocalypse etc...The whole essay consists of four chapters which are published separately as a four-part serie.

by Ľuboš Kotlár

Essay / NOWLESSNESS, Temporality

Essay deals with phenomenons of identity, relationships, normalising powers, temporality, queerness, queer art, the Anthropocene, the climate change, the apocalypse etc...The whole essay consists of four chapters which are published separately as a four-part serie.

by Ľuboš Kotlár

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: FRIEZE DIARY

For Frieze New York Spike columnist Dean Kissick didn't look at any art. Instead he drank with strangers to gauge the mood of the city.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: THE MELDING OF FASHION AND POLITICS

In his column Dean Kissick writes about fashion predicting the future and why today's political technologists are much like Parisian designers.

by Dean Kissick

Interview / Pier Paolo Tamburelli: A BUILDING IS A BUILDING

by Ivana Čobejová

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: THE MIRROR IN THE PALACE

In his column Dean Kissick writes about Neïl Beloufa's controversial show "L'Ennemi de mon ennemi" at Palais de Tokyo in Paris. What does it tell us about protest in our "byzantine circulatory system of images"?

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: CRYPTOCURRENCY AND MADNESS

In his first column of 2018 Dean Kissick writes about going crazy for crypto. How did the blockchain's promise of immutable truth turn into an opaque cultural spectacle?

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL #11

In his column Dean Kissick writes about the second season of the BBC's Blue Planet and finds a swansong for a disappearing natural world full of bizarre beauty. As it retreats into the past and becomes material for historians, science and technology may furnish us with an imaginary and perhaps still stranger world.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL #10

We are on the edge of the abyss, but nobody seems to really care. In his latest column Dean Kissick writes about how the present threat of a nuclear war gets lost in the memeification of reality and politics.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL #9

Will Ivanka Trump Save Us from Hell? Dean Kissick examines the culture of a collapsing society.

by Dean Kissick

Video / VLADIMÍR DEDEČEK: WORK

Documentary movie – video–interview with slovak architect Vladimír Dedeček.

THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL #8

This has been a year of disappearing statues, but what will become of all the defaced idols and broken images? Dean Kissick writes about why iconoclasm is back and what we can do about its aftermath.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL #7

Dean Kissick writes about what happens when subcultures emerge from the underbelly of the internet, Angela Nagle’s Kill All Normies, and how the culture wars of the 90s have come back to haunt us.

by Dean Kissick

Czechoslovakia at EXPO 67 in Montreal

Vladimíra Büngerová about Slovak participation in the Czechoslovak presentation at the 1967 Expo in Montreal

by Vladimíra Büngerová

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL #6

In his column Dean Kissick writes about Sophia, the first robot to be granted citizenship by a country. But as a female humanoid robot, she says more about humans' lack of imagination than the new forms and relationships that lie ahead of us.

by Dean Kissick

Esej / AKÁ BOLA ARCHITEKTONICKÁ SÚŤAŽ LUNÍK IX

by Peter Lényi

Esej / DAYDREAM

(Slovenčina) Architektonická skupina VAL – Voies et Aspectes du Lendemain (Cesty a aspekty zajtrajška)

by Peter Szalay

Essay / BEYOND THE FORMAL IN JEWELRY

Author jewelry seems to be changing its appearance.

by Katarína Šipošová

(Slovenčina) Esej / LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, MARTIN HEIDEGGER A ICH DOMY

by Fedor Blaščák

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL #5

In this month's column, Dean Kissick joins the dots between a runaway dog and shy peacocks in his diary of the preview days of documenta 14 in Kassel and Skulptur Projekte Münster.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL #4

The Summer of Love turns 50 this year, and we are still feeling its effects: In his latest column, Dean Kissick explains how a society more atomised than ever grew out of the ruins of the Bay Area counterculture.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL: DOCUMENTA 14

In this month’s column, Dean Kissick shares his diary of four days in Athens during the preview days of documenta 14.

by Dean Kissick

To be continued

Essay about contemporary slovak design.

by Ľubica Hustá

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL #2

In this month’s column, Dean Kissick looks at Superflat America, the rise of hikikomori and their connections to alt-right meme culture.

by Dean Kissick

Essay / THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL #1

In this month’s column, Dean Kissick considers Richard Prince's disavowal of his artwork and the destabilisation of reality.

by Dean Kissick

Interview / Milota Havránková and Igor Marko: HOW TO MOVE THINGS FORWARD IN SUBTLETIES

by Ľubica Hustá, Fedor Blaščák

Essay / RADICAL CELEBRITY

by Dean Kissick