Ondrej Jurčo ARCHITECTURE

The galleries and sacred architectures are similar
in some way. Taking away Christianity from
churches, as well as expositions from galleries, the
space itself can make a similar impression.
Being involved in the project “Noc kostolov“, we
used a sacral building of Evangelical Church in
Prešov for one weekend as a gallery of a conceptual
art. „Noc kostolov“ is an international project
which we needed to redefine for our own internal
needs as a multi-genre festival of a live dialogue.
Questioning the forms, we try to introspect the
mystery of contents and ask tough questions in a
deep search for God.
The installation contains several different contexts.
The church was built during communism with
a strict condition not to look like a church. The
main architect was forbidden to build towers, bell
towers or crosses. By this temporary installation, a
cross was placed at the top of the church building,
not with the aim to define its territory but rather
to proclaim an invitation.
The second context is based on its ideological
concept. Through this year’s topic “Accessible
church” – we looked into causes and forms of
many barriers arising in the middle of meditation
on God. It would be too easy to talk just about
physical barriers not mentioning those arising in
the depth of our attitudes, relationships or even
historical memory.
Each of the installations symbolizes a barrier in
church or even outside of it. ‘‘The Cube‘‘ at the top
of the church building describes one of the oldest
barriers – human suffering. In a rational shape of
the cube, made of a light wooden construction,
there are pixels, randomly placed, shining to the
whole town. They don’t make any sense, neither
as individual pieces nor as a whole unit. Only by
looking at the cube from a certain perspective, the
pixels create a cross. Symbolism of the rational
shape of the cube as an effort to grasp human life
into which there enters absurdity of the suffering
causes chaos in an organized life. Chaos, which is
so often a barrier in our meditations on God.
In the perspective of the ultimate human suffering
– the cross, a place, where God suffers, as well –
is chaos of individual pixels suddenly organized
into a meaningful object. That’s why we called this
installation “Christ in human suffering“.