sometimes i like to go to gym with my hair loose / guided tour with the artist

Guided tour with the exhibition's author Ľuboš Kotlár and Artivist Lab curator Tamara Moyzes

Slovak artist Ľuboš Kotlár, laureate of the Oskár Čepan Award 2025, will guide you through his exhibition I Like To Go To Gym With My Hair Loose, which — in line with the theme of the Times Are Changing festival — names the tensions of today's social climate.

Kotlár has long worked with "situations": time- and site-specific installations activated by the presence of people in the space. The gallery transforms into a locker room with lockers, benches, showers, and traces of an absent body. This intimately familiar yet destabilized space raises questions about bodily expectations, the cult of performance, queer vulnerability, and the social pressure that increasingly dictates who is allowed to be seen, how they may look, and how they may exist in public space.

Against the backdrop of growing social polarization and the strengthening grip of right-wing conservative tendencies across Europe, the installation takes on a clear political dimension. At the same time, the exhibition opens up space to reflect on how Roma and queer experience intersect around questions of visibility, memory, intimacy, vulnerability, and the search for new forms of belonging and solidarity.

Ľuboš Kotlár – a visual artist and photographer currently based between Prague and Bratislava. Originally from Šaľa, he completed his master's degree at the Department of Photography and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (2016–2018), where he also earned his bachelor's degree (2012–2016). His studies included stays at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem (2017) and at Aalto School of Art, Design and Architecture in Helsinki (2014). He has completed residencies at Residency Unlimited in New York (2025), Jaw Dikh in Poland (2024), MeetFactory in the Czech Republic (2022), and Villa Romana in Italy (2021). He currently works as an assistant professor at the Department of Photography and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. In 2016 he received the Young Talent of the Year award at Slovak Press Photo, and in 2025 he became a laureate of the Oskár Čepan Award. He exhibits regularly in Slovakia and abroad, with recent presentations including OFF Bratislava (2025), the Biennale Matter of Art in Prague (2022), and Manifesta 14 in Prishtina (2022).

Admission – voluntary

Accessibility – suitable for teens, dog-friendly, wheelchair accessible

Vibe check – standing room only, indoor space

Organized by – Artivist Lab Artivist Lab is an independent gallery and interdisciplinary platform at Kampus Hybernská in Prague, connecting contemporary art, activism, education, and public debate. It focuses on socially engaged projects, exhibitions, performances, lectures, and workshops that open up topics of human rights, memory, feminism, queer politics, decolonial approaches, and environmental issues. It creates space for critical thinking, solidarity, and international collaboration.

Dates: 5. 8. – 6. 8. 2026, daily 6:00–7:00 pm