Curatorial Positions in Central and Eastern Europe I.

Interview with Slovak art historian Štefánia Ďuricová

The following conversation is the first installment of a new interview series that seeks to map curatorial practices in Central and Eastern Europe. The aim of the series is to make visible the professional strategies, margins of manoeuvre, and dilemmas that shape the work of curators operating today in various institutional and independent contexts across the region.

Within the specific political, cultural, and economic environment of Central and Eastern Europe, the curatorial role often extends beyond the classical task of exhibition-making. The instability of funding structures, the varying degrees of institutional autonomy, and the presence of political influence all have a direct impact on programme development, acquisition strategies, and the possibilities of public engagement. In this context, the curator’s position is simultaneously professional, mediating, and, in many cases, implicitly political.

The first interview features Štefánia Ďuricová, a Slovak art historian who has worked in both institutional and independent positions. She is currently pursuing her doctoral research at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, focusing on the relationship between nationalism and art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The conversation touches upon the challenges of institutional practice in Eastern Slovakia, the rethinking of a permanent exhibition through ecological and political perspectives, and the ways in which the current Central and Eastern European political climate shapes curatorial agency and responsibility.

You studied abroad for many years (7) before your relocation to Slovakia, and now you have moved again – you live in Bergen, Norway. Let’s go a bit back in time: how would you describe your student years, and what made you move back to Košice, where you lived for the past five years?

I enjoyed my student years, travelling from country to country. They provided me with a broad understanding of the art field, its history and philosophy, and I had the opportunity to experience different educational systems. After completing my studies, I interned at Sotheby’s in London, but it was quite challenging to live there on an intern’s salary. I was basically living in a squat while working on New Bond Street. After this experience, I felt I needed some grounding. I was getting tired of constantly moving, so I decided to go back home to Slovakia. Looking back, these experiences shaped how I approach working within and with institutions. I became aware of how elitist the art world can be, and it made me want to work with cultural institutions to make them more open, inclusive, and accessible – not only in terms of who is represented there, but also who feels welcome to enter and engage with them.

Meanwhile, you are pursuing your PhD at the University of St Andrews – could you tell us a bit more about your research on nationalism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the role artists played in it?

My PhD topic, in retrospect, was driven by an internal impulse that I needed to pursue in order to understand my own roots. As the child of a Slovak national and a parent belonging to the Hungarian minority, I have a mixed background, as many people in Central Europe do, stemming from a multinational empire inhabited by our ancestors. This multiethnic space was later contested by historiography and largely absent from the historical narratives my generation grew up with.

I wanted to understand where contemporary nationalism comes from and how it is fuelled by current discourse. This research gave me a more nuanced perspective on the current rise of nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe, which I find deeply troubling. Artists and intellectuals played a significant role in nation-building processes in the nineteenth century as part of the cultural elite. They visualised national myths, produced didactic public artworks meant to educate citizens about history, and instrumentalised folklore to spread particular ideologies.

Did you choose this research topic precisely because of the current rise of populist and right-wing regimes in the region? What are the parallels between the period a century ago and the present? Is there anything we can learn from it?

I think we use the terms nationalism and populism very vaguely, often without fully understanding them. While foundational frameworks by thinkers such as Benedict Anderson, Antony D. Smith, or Ernest Gellner are useful, they are also limiting when applied to the Central European context. We live in a multinational and multiethnic space that is far more layered and negotiated. Today’s politics should not be confined to nation-states alone. Alliances such as the European Union or NATO have proven essential for safeguarding our integrity. We might think that the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the creation of nation-states were teleological processes, but current events – such as Russia’s imperial aggression and war against Ukraine – show how persistent and dangerous nationalist and populist politics can be.

As a curator, this research makes me very cautious about how national narratives are framed through labels, categories, or canons. Exhibition-making is a political act, especially within institutions. Curators have a voice, and I believe it should be used carefully, but critically. At certain moments, this voice can also take on an activist dimension.

I find the new collection exhibition titled The Comedy of Spirit – Permanent Collection ESG, which you curated together with Miroslav Kleban, outstanding. The display, the thematic chapters, and the overarching concept are very inspiring, especially the fact that you chose the 1925 theatre play The Comedy of Spirit by Anton Jasusch (who was also a painter and an important figure in the Košice Modernist movement) as a starting point. His paintings are highly relevant today, yet, for example, in Hungary he is not very well known.

Could you please describe how you chose Jasusch as a starting point and what the main steps were in developing the overall concept? Can we say that Jasusch’s painting is ecofeminist?

Thank you! In his 1925 theatre playThe Comedy of Spirit, Jasusch asks whether humans are superior to bees, other animals, or nature as a whole. When we first read the text, it felt strikingly contemporary; the collapse of world order, economic, moral, and social crises, wars, and ecological anxiety were already present a hundred years ago. Through both text and image, Jasusch articulated a philosophical worldview and a visual imaginary that resonated strongly with me and my co-curator, Miroslav Kleban.

This ecofeminist framework became a deliberate curatorial method rather than a historical claim. Of course, it is a contemporary reading, but one that allowed us to reinterpret the collection and create unexpected dialogues between artworks from very different periods. For instance, we paired a 19th-century landscape painting by Jozef Czauczik depicting mining with Oto Hudec’s Mascot (2018), a coal costume attempting to return to a coal mine. Such juxtapositions enabled us to reread the collection through questions of ecology and human–nature relations.

Ecology could be seen as the main overarching theme – did this idea emerge from the collection? How has the concept around ecology and cyclicity changed since Jasusch?

For many years, the East Slovak Gallery has been engaging with ecological themes on an institutional level. We have been trying to become more sustainable, for example by adapting the courtyard with plants to improve the building’s microclimate, and by curating exhibitions and public programmes with eco-critical perspectives.

The permanent exhibition consists of nine thematic sections, including cosmology, spirituality, fear of the future, planetary extinction, but also rebirth and the creation of a new Adam and Eve. While the exhibition might initially feel rather bleak, it ultimately offers a sense of hope. The idea that humanity still has the capacity to change and repair its relationship with the environment is present. These themes are not new; they recur throughout art history, and we traced them carefully within the collection, often recontextualising familiar artworks. Especially after the two World Wars, these existential fears and questions found strong expression in art, and we wanted visitors to experience this continuity as they move through the exhibition.

You also mentioned that a longer research phase preceded the curatorial work itself – what did you learn from fellow curators with whom you consulted about the challenges of displaying permanent collections? How did previous curators approach the ESG collection?

We started working on the exhibition almost five years ago, in 2020. The first phase involved fieldwork: researching recent permanent exhibitions, visiting institutions, and speaking with curators from the region, such as those at the National Gallery in Prague and the Slovak National Gallery (back when professionals still worked there). We also spoke with Hynek Alt, curator at the Aleš South Bohemian Gallery, whose perspective was very interesting. Their permanent exhibition Intersurveys was conceptualised as an ever-changing display, and this proved to be very exhausting. Moreover, the audience did not have enough time to engage deeply with the constantly changing presentations.

We asked ourselves a basic but crucial question: does a permanent exhibition still make sense in today’s rapidly changing world? Paradoxically, it was precisely this instability that convinced us of its relevance. Something permanent can offer a sense of continuity and comfort. At the same time, we wanted to present the “family silver” of the institution, such as the Košice Modernism artists (e.g. František Foltýn, Géza Schiller), as well as recognised artists such as Mária Bartuszová and Stano Filko. We wanted both local and international audiences to encounter the highlights of the collection alongside lesser-known works.

We organised a colloquium and published an online publication, bringing together diverse perspectives on the future of permanent collections. From these discussions, we decided on a simple display design combined with complex and layered content. The process was far from easy. Selecting just over 140 works meant a long and often painful process of elimination, constantly negotiating between quality and narrative coherence.

What is the relationship between older and newer acquisitions? Did you manage to exhibit works that had not been on display for years?

We began by identifying a core group of works – the “highlights” that we knew had to be included. At the same time, it was important for us to reflect the gallery’s recent acquisition strategy. Alongside well-known artists, we included contemporary works that had entered the collection more recently, such as those by Anna Hulačová or Emília Rigová. This was possible because the institution has maintained a long-term and conceptually coherent acquisition policy, built around specific themes and artistic positions.

We were particularly interested in how newer works might disrupt or complicate established readings of the collection. While the display itself remains relatively conservative and clean in its visual language, the experimentation happens on the level of interpretation – through thematic framing, unexpected pairings, and re-readings of familiar works. For example, we juxtaposed monumental paintings by Anton Jasusch with Mária Bartuszová’s fragile plaster works, and placed Marko Blažo’s digital and acrylic painting of a Gothic cathedral next to our oldest work – an inverted Pietà wooden sculpture from the fourteenth century.

The design of the display is also a conscious decision – could you please elaborate on your collaboration with Studio Cosmo?

In 2021, we organised a design competition for the exhibition, which Studio Cosmo from Prague won. We were drawn to their approach to cyclic change and sustainability. The exhibition furniture was made from recycled yoghurt cups, plastic keyboards, and other waste materials, resulting in a marble-like appearance. From a curatorial perspective, the challenge was to balance this strong material concept with practical constraints, accessibility requirements, and a limited budget.

You mentioned that the building itself was in very poor condition and first needed to be renovated. There were also difficulties with funding. In general, we could say that the cultural scene is struggling to survive in Central Eastern Europe, and Slovakia is following Hungarian tendencies in terms of authoritarian systems.

It is almost a small miracle that we managed to open the exhibition on this scale (nearly 700 square metres). The Košice Self-Governing Region supported the project financially, and we were also able to secure funding from the Slovak Arts Council before it was effectively dismantled. The current Slovak Ministry of Culture is, frankly, the worst we have experienced so far. Widespread incompetence and the systematic disruption of cultural institutions have created an atmosphere of uncertainty and exhaustion. We were fortunate to have signed contracts before these political shifts fully materialised.

How did the political climate affect this exhibition, and what is the situation now both in Slovakia and in Košice?

On the one hand, the situation is extremely difficult. On the other, it has brought cultural actors closer together than ever before. Alongside frustration and despair, I see solidarity, collective effort, and resistance. New initiatives and platforms have emerged, and I believe this moment – despite its challenges – could lay the groundwork for future development and greater professionalisation of the arts sector.

Speaking of solidarity and collective effort, you also co-curated a so-called protest exhibition last autumn at Kunsthalle Košice with artists whose funding from the Arts Council had been suddenly withdrawn. What was the motivation behind this project, and how did you collaborate with the artists?

Above all, the curators (Petra Housková, Monika Padejová, and I) wanted to open a public discussion about arts funding. The current political discourse suggesting that artists should not receive stipends, or that institutions should only receive minimal support, is simply unacceptable. In a functioning society, art and culture are understood as public goods, generating values that go far beyond economics and contributing to a healthy society.

From a curatorial perspective, this project was challenging because of its collective authorship. We were very careful to avoid instrumentalisation and to preserve the artists’ agency. Rather than speaking on behalf of the artists, we tried to create a framework in which they could articulate their own positions and concerns.

At the moment, you are working again as an independent curator, currently living in Bergen, Norway – which is also close to my heart, as I studied there between 2021 and 2023 as part of the Curatorial Practice MA programme. We actually met last summer at the alumni conference of the programme. In what ways do you stay in touch with Slovakia and the CEE region? Are there any upcoming collaborations?

I remain actively involved in Slovakia and the wider Central European region. I am currently preparing several exhibitions planned for 2026 in Košice, Bratislava, and likely elsewhere. My next project is an exhibition by Tina Hrevušová at Šopa Gallery in Košice – a space you are familiar with.

Can you see any parallels between the CEE region and Scandinavia? Or is there something that could be researched further?

Yes, there are several connections worth exploring. One of them is a shared perception of “peripherality” in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when both regions were considered marginal within dominant art-historical narratives. In reality, they produced – and continue to produce – highly significant and innovative art.

There are also thematic overlaps, such as a strong relationship to landscape, environmental concerns, industrialisation and resource extraction, as well as mythology and foundational narratives. I am interested in developing comparative research projects and potentially collective exhibitions that would bring these regions into dialogue.

What questions do you find most relevant in contemporary art today, and in what ways do you plan to approach them in the future?

I don’t want to sound like a doomer, but questions about the future of humanity feel unavoidable – particularly in relation to the climate crisis and the looming presence of artificial intelligence. While I am not opposed to technology and recognise its potential to improve lives, it does not seem to reduce social and economic inequalities.

Contemporary art engages deeply with these uncertainties, often anticipating future scenarios before they fully materialise. I believe art can pose critical questions, generate debate, and occupy a unique position within society. Moving forward, I am interested in more interdisciplinary approaches – projects in which artists collaborate with researchers, scientists, or activists, not only to produce new artworks, but to imagine alternative futures and possible solutions.

Perhaps this sounds naive, but I would like to facilitate unexpected collaborations, collective initiatives, and experimental formats that challenge existing problems or open up new ways of thinking about what lies ahead.