Blood

The ambition of the concisely-titled BLOOD exhibition is to present a unique (at least on the Slovak scene) trans-historic curatorial project. On one hand, its central cultural category is related to the human body, and therefore to life (or death), on the other hand, it is the subject of various literary, religious and social projections. Thus, just as it is impossible to imagine a living organism without blood, so the metaphors of blood - its 'cultural' functions - in their own turn formed the man's view of not only himself and his environment, but oftentimes also of that which transcends him. That is also the reason why almost all major religions thematised their relation to blood so-to-speak explicitly.

Nevertheless, even for a secular culture, blood was never merely a biological, medical or gastronomic issue. Expressions and collocations such as 'blood revenge', 'blood ties', 'blue blood', but also 'bloodthirsty', 'blood thickened in his veins' - these all express quite well the relationship of society to blood. For us, they offer the primary potential for developing an engaging contemplation of blood's visual capacity (and its metaphors) ranging from the 14th century all the way to the present day.

The visual culture not only responded to the mentioned phenomena (as well as to numerous taboos related to blood), but it actually often created and/or actively formed them throughout the history of art.

Editor: Dušan Buran
Preface: Dušan Buran
Texts: Dušan Buran, Martin Čičo, Lucia Gregorová, Ľubica Hustá, Radoslav Ragač
Graphic Design: Mária Čorejová
Number of Pages: 176
Binding: V4 paperback
Dimensions: 190 × 253 mm
Language: slovak, english summary
ISBN: 978-80-8059-170-0
Publication Date: 2012