curator: Lucia Gavulová

Dating Mr. Proper is Zuzana Svatik’s first solo exhibition in Bratislava. In it, she steps out from the intimate medium of ceramics into the realm of large-scale and multifunctional sculptures—into the field of autonomous visual creation. This shift marks a radical and, until now, “untested” transformation in her practice. Through her sculptures, displayed both inside and outside the gallery, she speaks through bodies—unruly, wounded, grotesque, impure—united by an overwhelming desire to survive. Her work deliberately deconstructs notions of utility, cleanliness, gender stereotypes, and even contemporary visual art and its modes of expression.

At White & Weiss Gallery, she presents mainly bodies that “flow”—harmoniously gurgling in contrast to the contents they erupt. It is a complex manifesto of the artist’s resistance to norms: the role of man/father, social conventions, the model of the nuclear family, collective stereotypes about “female roles,” masculinity as a standard of power, and the cultural traumas associated with childhood and adolescence in a post-socialist Eastern European state.

Zuzana Svatik comments on all this through pearlescent penises, hyperrealistic logos, swan rides from amusement parks, nudity in high heels, the insecticide brand Raid, and Mr. Proper—the universally recognized figure of the strong, muscular, clean, fragrant, flawless man, as a symbol of capitalist authority over the body, household, aesthetics, and language. The artist’s relationship with him is subversive and uncompromisingly critical.

Zuzana Svatik (b. 1993) is a Slovak visual artist with experience living and working in Berlin. She studied in the Department of Ceramics at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design (AFAD) in Bratislava, where she completed her master’s degree in 2018. During her studies, she undertook residencies in Poland and Israel. After graduation, she worked in the studio of Monika Grabuschnigg in Berlin. She has exhibited both solo and in group shows in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, Lithuania, Belgium, France, Italy, and Israel. In 2016, she won the Collection of the Year award at Bratislava Design Week and the Grand Prize in 2018. In 2021, she was named a laureate in the Newcomer category of the Slovak National Design Award. She has also been nominated for several prestigious awards in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Germany. She is currently completing her doctoral studies at AFAD.