We invite you to an evening that brings together reading, reflection, and an encounter with the work of Denisa Lehocká directly in the space for which it is being created.
The program will open with a guided reading by curator and art theorist Mária Hlavajová, offering one of the possible entry points into Lehocká’s work. The evening will then continue with the opening of the exhibition Untitled 2026, prepared for the space beneath FOR MAAT Gallery in Trenčín.
Word, space, and personal experience will meet at one time and in one place. The lecture and exhibition opening naturally follow one another, creating an opportunity to enter the exhibition within a broader context.
When & where
15 May 2026
17:30
Space beneath FOR MAAT, Trenčín
Evening program
17:30 — Ode to Joy (Despite Everything). Guided reading from texts on the work of Denisa Lehocká
Mária Hlavajová
19:00 — Opening of the exhibition Denisa Lehocká: Untitled 2026
Curator: Lýdia Pribišová
About the event
The evening is dedicated to the work of Denisa Lehocká, whose practice is characterized by a sensitive engagement with space, memory, and the embodied experience of the viewer. The opening guided reading will offer a framework through which the exhibition can be perceived, followed by the exhibition opening itself in the space beneath FOR MAAT Gallery.
Exhibition
Denisa Lehocká: Untitled 2026
Curator: Lýdia Pribišová
Denisa Lehocká’s work is marked by a distinctive immersion into space and time. Her spatial collages and unique installations respond to specific environments—in this case, an underground industrial space, a former food storage facility beneath FOR MAAT Gallery near the train station. The installation is based on an organic expansion of objects into the environment, creating a complex, immersive bodily experience for the viewer, grounded in movement, sensory perception, and attention.
The current exhibition project works primarily with subjective memory and the artist’s personal story. Denisa Lehocká was born in Trenčín but had to leave at a young age due to her studies. She felt unprepared for this step, forcibly removed from a safe environment. Her work engages with this traumatic experience, the feeling of uprootedness and emptiness, as well as the return to her hometown—now significantly changed. She reflects on alienation and the possibilities of overcoming it.
photo Boleslav Boška
Guided reading
Ode to Joy (Despite Everything)
In the context of overlapping crises of the contemporary world, curator and theorist Mária Hlavajová will look at Denisa Lehocká’s work through the lens of joy as a radical form of resistance, deep strength, freedom, and inspiration—despite everything. The reading will include excerpts from texts on the artist’s work by various international authors.
About Mária Hlavajová
Mária Hlavajová is a curator, organizer, researcher, educator, and founding director of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (2000–2025). Over three decades of practice focused on politics and political imagination in art, she has initiated numerous long-term international artistic, research, discursive, educational, exhibition, and publishing projects, including Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–2024), Former West (2008–2016), and New World Academy (with Jonas Staal, 2013–2016).
Her (co-)edited publications include Fragments of Repair (with Kader Attia and Wietske Maas, 2025); Toward the Not-Yet: Art as Public Practice (with Jeanne van Heeswijk and Rachael Rakes, 2021); Deserting from the Culture Wars (with Sven Lütticken, 2020); and Propositions for Non-Fascist Living: Tentative and Urgent (with Wietske Maas, 2019). She is based in Amsterdam.
