Everyday life is the starting point for the art of Roman Ondak, which is characterized by the creation of processes involving intervention in, redistribution of, or reproduction of various events or places. Ondak creates art that brings to the forefront rules of day-to-day life, the art system, and difficult-to-accept aspects of society that people are not usually aware of, employing simple yet distinctive methods to arrange traces of people’s lives in space, as if he were conducting an anthropological study. Many of his projects produce new perspectives regarding social relationships and human experiences by sometimes enlisting family, friends, art museum staff, and museum visitors as accomplices in the creation of his works. The motivation behind this is born of his observations of the behavioral patterns and politics of the post-communist society of Slovakia.

In this work, Event Horizon (2016), the artist sliced the trunk of an oak tree into one hundred disks, and stamped a description of a historical event onto each disk, ranging from 1917 to 2016, with the corresponding annual ring in the tree clearly delineated. During the exhibition, one disk per day is taken from the floor and hung on the next peg fixed to the wall. On the final day of the show on October 10, all of the wooden disks will have been hung on the wall. Linking the history experienced by humanity and this oak tree in this way, the work forces the viewer to imagine broad, sweeping perspectives, such as the workings of nature in the modern world and cosmological laws, from the sections of a tree.

Ondak’s past solo exhibitions include Perfect Society, Esther Schipper (2019; Berlin, Germany), History Repeats Itself, Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg (2017; Aalborg, Denmark), and The Source of Art is in the Life of a People, South London Gallery (2016; London, UK). He also participated in the Czech and Slovak pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009 and was named Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year 2012.

Selected Works & Awards

2019

Perfect Society, Esther Schipper, Berlin, Germany

2017

History Repeats Itself, Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Aalborg, Denmark

2016

The Source of Art is in the Life of a People, South London Gallery, London, UK

2012

Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year 2012

2009

53rd Venice Biennale, Czech and Slovak pavilion, Venice, Italy

Exhibition

• Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2022
• Event Horizon, 2016
• Photo: ToLoLo studio