Stano Filko: Painting

The exhibition places the painterly oeuvre of the Slovak neo-avant-garde artist Stano Filko (1937–2015) at center stage. This body of work is largely confined to the 1980s, a decade marked by decisive biographical turning points and ruptures in Filko’s life: his escape to West Germany, his participation in documenta in Kassel in 1982, and the subsequent years he spent in exile in New York.

Amid this period of profound existential transformation, Filko produced a series of paintings distinguished by pronounced neo-expressionist qualities. Their intense color and subject matter reflect the stark contrasts and contradictions that defined the decade—between late-capitalist consumer excess, hyperrealism, and the devastating impact of the AIDS pandemic.