Exhibitions

The exhibition Bin Bear Series – as the name itself suggests (“bin” – trash can, “bear” – bear) – is about animals, but not only about them. It is also about us, about people, about nature, its protection, and our attitude towards it. The project was created in collaboration between Janka Kolibri Podkrivacká and photographer and filmmaker Karol Kaliský together with his son Karol Kaliský Jr.

Part One – Paintings and the Forest That Falls Apart

The first part of the exhibition consists of seven paintings combining two techniques and two visual sources – both based on photography. Animals captured in their natural environment by the Kaliskýs are placed into an abstract forest created from the artist’s own impressionistic photographs. The forest here represents an environment we no longer understand. From a distance, we seem to recognize trees, branches, grass, or leaves, yet when we come closer, the whole scene dissolves into a mesh of lines and layers of color.
It is an image of the complexity of nature – one that can only be truly understood when we immerse ourselves in it. From afar, problems appear clear and simple, but the closer we look, the more we realize that the first glance never reveals the whole story.

Fear and Boundaries

Encountering wild animals often evokes fear – a primal, instinctive emotion. After such an experience, many people feel that the animal “does not belong” in the same space they inhabit. For this reason, three of the paintings in the exhibition include bars. They also refer to endangered species. The bars, however, are not meant to protect people from animals – but rather the other way around. They remind us that when we walk through the forest, we are entering someone else’s home. We are the visitors, and we should respect the rules of those for whom the forest is home.

Animals That Are Disappearing

The animals are painted in a contrasting style – black and white, partly dreamlike, as if they no longer belonged in the colorful world around them. A similar principle is used in the photographs, which the artist edited to enhance the impression that these creatures are slowly disappearing from our world, the world slowly fading away. The fox, which we still occasionally see, may one day become only a memory – an animal that no longer exists. Thus, the exhibition is not only about the beauty of nature but also about its fragility and the responsibility we all bear.

The View from Above

The works are installed in such a way that visitors look down at the animals. From this position, they become symbolic “masters of creation,” deciding about life, death, and the space for life itself. Yet all the animals return the gaze. Their eyes look straight at the viewer – whether in the paintings or in the photographs placed on the floor, where the sense of human superiority is even more apparent. In the photographs, the artist used painting intervention to intensify emotion. The animal’s gaze is all that remains. It does not speak our language, yet in its silence it tells everything – that it lives, feels, and belongs.

The Central Work – The Bear

The idea for the central painting Bear lived in the artist’s mind for twelve years. It came to life when Karol Kaliský Jr. sent her a photograph of a bear with a frightened look, captured mid-run. From that moment, the entire series began to unfold. The bear, chained to an overturned trash bin spilling cans and plastic bottles, is not only an image of waste problems. It is an image of us all – of a society that, through its actions, ties animals to a world shaped by human activity. The bear that finds corn near the border of a national park does not understand that it is not meant for him. He sees only food. But in this way, we make him dependent – just as we ourselves become dependent on the environment we continually change. Our actions are like the chain around his leg. And as wildness slowly disappears from him, wilderness disappears from our world.

Conclusion

The exhibition Bin Bear Series tells the story of a world transformed by human hands – a world where wildness no longer belongs. It is not a reproach, but a mirror – a quiet invitation to realize that what is once lost may never return. Because our actions are like the chain around the bear’s leg – and with every link, a piece of wildness disappears from him, just as wilderness slowly vanishes from our nature