Exhibition: The Stolen Gallery - Matúš Lányi

The internet space is constantly forming, but the need of an individual to anchor themselves in an environment or society that he or she considers safe and mentally beneficial in the non-ideologizing virtual environment, acts like a form of therapy. Moreover, this environment is exact, standing on solid numerical combinations. According to C. G. Jung, religion is a system of mental healing. Thus, if mental therapy of users is happening with the current massive growth of the internet and social media sites, this phenomenon bears a significant attribute of religion and society might want to believe something that has the potential to heal it and bring it a form of experience from the contact with a new type of miracle and its visual forms. Matúš Lányi was born in 1981 in Spišské Podhradie. From 2000 to 2007 he studied at the Department of Fine Arts and Intermedia at the Faculty of Arts of the Technical University in Košice. In his artistic work, he programmatically studies the influence of new technologies on the traditional myth, as a part of the cultural code of the European geographical space. He lives in Banská Štiavnica and works in Košice and Bratislava. The Stolen Gallery is an experimental street art project whose initial idea was born in Český Krumlov. It enables people to encounter art right in the streets, outside the official predetermined venues. Although exhibitions in public areas bring the risk of damage or theft to the artwork, such “stealing” is an acceptable price for free culture that we can share with other people. The Stolen Gallery has been taking place in Banská Štiavnica since 2011.