Asphalt

Instructions:

The former State Hospital building in Banská Štiavnica has a long and complicated history. Apart from healthcare, it had served the public also as a court-of-law building with prison, or also as the morgue. That is why it is a source of many superstitions and ghost stories. The artwork by Tomáš Klepoch reacts to a completely different layer of its existence, to the times when the building was a private palace with typical fresco decorative paintings of the 18th century. Various ornaments and motives, noble portraits or oriental imageries form a part of extremely rich wall paintings in the whole building. In the course of time, they were painted over and only the latest renovation has revealed their presence. Klepoch has decided to work with these motives, one by one, to redraw them and cut them in an asphalt stripe which in its final form is pouring out of the building. By doing so, he reveals that what normally remains hidden to the public.