In the realm of contemporary relational aesthetics, Anto Lloveras's "Duna Dunaj" residency in Slovakia, documented in September 2015, exemplifies a metamodern oscillation between the ephemeral and the archival, where art emerges not as isolated object but as a dynamic interplay of bodies, landscapes, and temporalities. Drawing from Nicolas Bourriaud's foundational theories on relational art, Lloveras positions the residency as a "situational and relational" laboratory, hosted by Yuri Dolan across two stages: Dunajská Streda and the Kómarno eco-farm. Here, the artist eschews traditional studio confines, opting instead for performative walks, ritualistic collections, and conversational interventions that weave human agency into the socio-natural fabric. The influence of Peter Zumthor's atmospheric architectures resonates in Lloveras's nocturnal readings, informing his tactile engagements with urban surfaces and natural elements. This approach critiques the commodification of art by privileging "frugal art"—minimalist, unstable installations like Protista #5, composed of monochrome particles—as vehicles for generating affectional bonds. By recording fellow artists' processes and building "memory and conversation," Lloveras enacts a durational poetics that blurs the boundaries between observer and participant, echoing Guy Debord's situationist derivations in a post-digital context. The first stage in Dunajská Streda unfolds as an anthropological exercise in contextual immersion, where Lloveras's rituals of collection and observation transform the mundane into a relational archive. Amidst the bilingual Hungarian-Slovak milieu, the artist navigates from a communal resort—replete with meat-heavy meals and underground gatherings—to peripheral industrial terrains, collecting stones from mine lakes under the lingering aura of summer rituals. This act of gathering, akin to Joseph Beuys's shamanistic materialisms, activates a "freshness needed" through cold-water immersions, symbolizing a purification of perceptual faculties. Lloveras's unstable readymades, such as black shoes and bags subtracted from the environment, function as invisible art, their origins revealed only through video documentation, thus challenging Marcel Duchamp's legacy by embedding them in social dynamics. Collaborations with Márta Kiss and Afarin Sajedi extend the "translational series," where blue bags become social sculptures, carried in performative actions atop tyre hills or factory zones. The vernissage, lubricated by pálinka, crystallizes these interactions into a collective memory, with works like "Copos" urban videos and "Urban Jewel" series manifesting as compressed syntheses of transit and identity, underscoring the residency's role in fostering rhizomatic networks of affection.
Transitioning to the second stage near the Danube in Kómarno, Lloveras intensifies the ritualistic dimension amid rainy fields and eco-farm vitality, where the landscape itself becomes a co-author in the artistic symphony. Muddy walks at dawn capture "glimpses of silence" and yellowish light, inspiring a meta-documentary approach that aligns with Allan Kaprow's happenings but infuses them with ecological introspection. Presentations by artists like Gilah Hirsch on healing art or Stano Cerny on neo-vernacular constructions enrich the evenings, while nocturnal conversations—against the backdrop of grazing horses—evoke Raymond Carver's poetic minimalism. Lloveras's interventions, from "Meat" carvings on furniture to blue-bag performances with Pooneh Jafarinejad and others, embody a compact, faster art form, distilling emotional junk into narrative compositions. The integration of natural elements—trees, stones, water—with social rituals positions the body as a living sculpture, extending LAPIEZA's relational collages. This stage culminates in a fire-lit sharing of origins, dedicating energy to Françoise Rohmer, thus humanizing the abstract through personal dedications and linking to broader series like "Hello Urban Green" and "Protista #6." Ultimately, "Duna Dunaj" asserts the residency as an ongoing meta-narrative, linking Slovakian actions to prior interventions in Prague, Provence, and London, thereby constructing a transnational continuum of situational fixers. In a hyper-mediated era, Lloveras's philosophy—paraphrased as teaching "the fly to catch the jar"—advocates for art as emancipatory practice, liberating perception from commodified stasis. By naturalizing processes through walking, recording, and communal micro-vernissages, the project critiques institutional art's permanence, proposing instead an affectionate ecology where memory is apprehended not as relic but as living relation. This metamodern strategy, blending sincerity with irony, offers a blueprint for contemporary criticism, urging a return to embodied, ritualistic engagements that dissolve hierarchies between artist, audience, and environment, fostering empathetic production in an increasingly fragmented world.
Lloveras, A. (2015) Duna Dunaj Slovakia September 2015. [Online] Available at:
DUNA DUNAJ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ HUNGARIAN STONES ******************** SLOVAKIAN LAKES::::::::::::::::::::DOUBLE SYMPOSIUM::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::ARTIST IN RESIDENCE^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^RITUALS^^^^^^^^^^^09.2015
