Popular song Po schodoch (Up the stairs) by famous Slovak singer Richard Müller ends with words "from this day I use only stairs". This sociological probe proves itself even in this little shortcut, why the staircase is not just an irrelevant passing corridor, but also an important and significant meeting point. Thanks to NoArt cinema the staircase isn´t in 2019 used only by gallery visitors, but also movie watchers, therefore it seems important to highlight its place in the cinematography. Since its beginning, various types of staircase play the central role in many key movie scenes. One of the most expressive in the silent film is the massacre on Odessa staircase in Battleship Potemkin, which nowadays is coined by it as Potemkin´s staircase. In Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock, it arouses nausea, in Dirty Dancing and Titanic it becomes a symbol of prestige, in Harry Potter there is magical moving staircase, in The Name of the Rose stairs as labyrinth; the count of film scenes, that wouldn´t exist without the stairs, is very long, maybe even endless. The staircase in Gallery Kontext seemingly doesn´t have such dramatic context, but it also became a central object of interest and throughout 2019 it created a series of dramatic time and site-specific environments (sceneries) for gallery and cinema visitors, employees and bypassers.
X ups and downs, fifty stairs, seven spirals, two tappings, one staircase, one gallery, one cinema, one curatorial group, one author. Richard Loskot has been exploring the spaces of Gallery Kontext during one year, which culminated in his last diptych called Ups and Downs / Downs and Ups. The central motif of the intervention series called From the Cycle Of Spirals became the above mentioned architectonic element, that both guides you through space and significantly defines it – the staircase. It offers various social interactions, is dramatic, physically demanding, both open and closed. The first spiral in form of an observatory, offered an opportunity, with the help of mirror reflections, to see not only your reflection but also actual situation on the other side of staircase without moving; the second suggested universe or light at the end of tunnel, slowly disappearing in the dark, evolutional trend of the third spiral was formed of real plants, following the cycle of life and death, although not planned, symptomatically the one plant, that was named as "existence" died, in the fourth spiral it was possible to see portrait of own mutation with the plant within 600 millions of years, the fifth developed the value of time and ephemerality of the present moment proven by fragility and ephemeral beauty of formation and cessation of bubbles.
In the sixth spiral, Richard Loskot uses climbing up the stairs to thematizing the principles of growth and progress. As well as in the previous projects, he creates tension between particular site-specific situation and abstract contemplation. At the end of this year, the cycle will be ended symptomatically by commentary on the motif of regress and cessation exemplified by moving on the stairs downwards, thus metaphorically broadening the physical experience, opening doors to thoughts on the spiritual decline. Level meter, whether the glass is full or empty, is moving. To experience the zero point, neutral, where the calm perseveres, is not simple.
