Art Omi and Kunsthalle Praha Fellowship for Visegrad Region: This year‘s resident has been announced

As part of the ongoing support of artistic and cultural development in our region, Kunsthalle Praha has established cooperation with the American Art Omi Foundation under the title Art Omi and Kunsthalle Praha Fellowship for Visegrad Region. Last November, together with Art Omi, we invited artists from Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland to apply for a two-month US residency program. This program will offer one selected representative from the Visegrad region, and thirty other artists from all over the world, the opportunity to work independently and collaboratively, but above all freely, at the foundation’s countryside base in Columbia County.As part of the ongoing support of artistic and cultural development in our region, Kunsthalle Praha has established cooperation with the American Art Omi Foundation. Last November, together with Art Omi, we invited artists from Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland to apply for a two-month US residency program. This program will offer one selected representative from the Visegrad region, and thirty other artists from all over the world, the opportunity to work independently and collaboratively, but above all freely, at the foundation’s countryside base in Columbia County.

After careful consideration by an expert jury, Przemek Pyszczek (1985), an artist of Polish-Canadian descent, was selected for this year's participation in the program. In his work, Pyszczek thematizes the post-socialist reality of Poland which, as an artist, he views through the optics of the surviving architecture of this period. He adapts its forms and impulses and transfers them to other media, typically through playfully colored compositions of images and objects. Through his artistic work, he recalls the childhood spent in the state before transformation and before moving to Canada. His work thus allows viewers to indulge in visual nostalgia, which he perceives as part of his personal history.

Pyszczek will visit the Art Omi campus between spring and summer 2020. The stay will include a so-called Visitors Program, which provides the residents with the opportunity to have their new works confront the assessment of established New York art critics.

Photo: archive of Przemek Pyszczek