They first bumped into each other last year, at the beginning of winter. But before Habima and Viktorie actually met, their artworks had an encounter at a group exhibition last summer. Against the background of Victoria Langer’s monumental painting, there were the scarcely identifiable animals captured in sculpture by Habima Fuchs. It was like attaining a rare harmony: at this time and at this place (no matter that their artefacts had been created a few years earlier), the two artists told in unison of our desires and our daily struggles, played out in a context set by events of recent years. It’s a story about groping, inability to extricate oneself from the circle that we’re constantly turning in, and the impossibility of returning to our own selves.

When first we stumbled upon one another, I arrived with tense expectancy: would these artists, who had never previously met, get on together? Not just as personalities but also in their current work, which in both cases had more or less changed, in content as well as formally, since the time of origin of the pieces referred to above. But during the very first meeting it was clear to me that they were forging a natural connection. It did not take them long to find a theme which they resolved to address jointly, even if with different expressive means. Their joint exhibition The Unmoved Is the Source of All Movement, prepared for the Zahorian Van Espen Gallery in Bratislava, tells of the trail that they blazed in recent years, and the transformation of energy leading to an awareness that even temporarily staying still may be an important step forward.

Habima Fuchs (1977, lives and works in Prague). Since the late 1990s, when she lived and worked in Berlin, she has exhibited at solo and group exhibitions in Europe and USA. In the Czech Republic she has had numerous exhibitions, especially in Prague’s SVIT Gallery, by which she is represented. In recent times she has taken part in, for example, the group exhibition Unplugged (Rudolfinum Gallery, Prague, 2020)… Line as Thought, Lines as Universe… Kunstverein Salzburg, 2021), and the review Biennale Gherdeina 7 (Ortisei, 2020). She has also had a series of solo presentations (The Great Ocean Continuously Creating, SVIT Prague 2019; DAMA Torino 2018; 297, Kunstverein Munich, 2018; Eyes Horizontal, Nose Vertical (foster the Eminent Dance), Warhus Rittershaus, Köln, 2016; Salt Sea Water Absorbed by Clouds Turns Sweet, Zacheta, Warsaw, 2016, etc.) She has completed residences e.g. in Italy (Fiorucci Art Trust, Stromboli), Slovakia (Banská Štiavnica Contemporary, Banská Štiavnica, 2014), and Switzerland (Sitterwerk, St. Gallen, 2020). She is the author of a number of works executed in public space (Comprising the Universe, Innsbruck, 2021, a series of stained/glass windows for BG/BRG Sillgasse). Currently she is working on a film project with MUO Olomouc.

Viktorie Langer (1988, lives and works in Prague and Sicily). In 2015 she graduated from the Studio of Painting II at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where she studied with the guest teachers Florian Pumhösl and Silke Otto-Knapp. She completed study stays in Madrid, Athens and Rotterdam. She has exhibited at the David Zwirner Gallery (2019, New York, a pop-up in the Plan B trade fair) and Het Wilde Weten (2017, Rotterdam). A series of group exhibitions featuring her works includes, for example, Middle European Mysticism (2020, New York, Thomas Erben Gallery), Against Nature (2016, National Gallery in Prague), and Alone (2016, Sør Troms Museum, Trastad), etc. She has been a finalist for the Jindřich Chalupecký Prize (2017) and the Oskar Čepan Prize (2021).