sometimes i like to go to gym with my hair loose / guided tour with the artist
Guided tour with artist Ľuboš Kotlár and Artivist Lab curator Tamara Moyzes
Slovak artist Ľuboš Kotlár, recipient of the 2025 Oskár Čepan Award, will guide you through his exhibition I Like To Go To Gym With My Hair Loose, which reflects the tensions of today’s social climate in line with the festival theme Times Are Changing.
Kotlár has long worked with “situations” — site- and time-specific installations activated by the presence of people in the space. The gallery is transformed into a locker room filled with lockers, benches, showers, and traces of an absent body. This familiar yet unsettling environment opens up questions of bodily expectations, performance culture, queer vulnerability, and the growing social pressure that increasingly dictates who is allowed to be visible, how they are allowed to look, and how they are allowed to exist in public space.
In the context of growing social polarisation and the strengthening presence of right-wing conservative tendencies across Europe, the installation takes on a clear political dimension. At the same time, the exhibition creates space to reflect on how Romani and queer experiences intersect in questions of visibility, memory, intimacy, vulnerability, and the search for new forms of belonging and solidarity.
Ľuboš Kotlár – a visual artist and photographer currently working between Prague and Bratislava. He completed both his Master’s degree (2016–2018) and Bachelor’s degree (2012–2016) at the Department of Photography and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (AFAD). His education also includes exchange studies at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem (2017) and the Aalto School of Art, Design and Architecture in Helsinki (2014). He has participated in artist residencies at Residency Unlimited in New York (2025), Jaw Dikh in Poland (2024), MeetFactory in the Czech Republic (2022), and Villa Romana in Italy (2021). He currently serves as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Photography and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. In 2016, he received the Young Talent of the Year Award at Slovak Press Photo, and in 2025 he became the recipient of the Oskár Čepan Award. He regularly exhibits both in Slovakia and internationally. His work has been presented as part of OFF Bratislava (2025), Biennale Matter of Art in Prague (2022), and Manifesta 14 in Skopje (2022), among other exhibitions.
Entrance fee – voluntarily
Accessibility – suitable also for teenagers, accessible with a dog, barrier-free
Vibe check – standing only, indoors
Organized by – Artivist Lab
Artivist Lab is an independent gallery and interdisciplinary platform based at Kampus Hybernská in Prague, bringing together contemporary art, activism, education, and public debate. It focuses on socially engaged projects, exhibitions, performances, lectures, and workshops addressing topics such as human rights, memory, feminism, queer politics, decolonial approaches, and environmental issues. Artivist Lab creates space for critical thinking, solidarity, and international collaboration.