MILAN ADAMČIAK
JAKUB FRANK, LUCIA G. STACH
NOVEMBER 2025
The exhibition Milan Adamčiak offers insight into the multilayered creative universe of one of the most intriguing (Czecho-)Slovak neo-avant-garde artists. Milan Adamčiak (1946–2017) was a musicologist, artist, performer, and polymath who fused music, visual art, philosophy, literature, and performance into a distinctive experimental vision that, in its own way, challenged conventional forms of artistic creation.
His multimedia program was grounded in a “Sisyphean labor” with everyday objects, images, and sounds—transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, turning mundane situations into moments of discovery. He created DIY musical instruments from found materials such as metal scraps, glass, and wood waste—using them not only as functional performative tools but also as autonomous sculptural objects.
At the core of his work were his now-iconic graphic scores, conceptual art, and interdisciplinary collaborations.
The exhibition also features one of his interactive objects from the time he was active in the experimental collective Transmusic Comp., through which a number of contemporary artists, performers, and musicians brought radical ideas to life—ideas that resonated with the international Fluxus movement, John Cage, and New Music, as well as with like-minded intermedia artistic alternatives in both Western and Eastern Europe.
By placing Adamčiak’s work within broader artistic contexts, the exhibition highlights the international significance of his oeuvre—while also recognizing it as deeply rooted in the specific cultural and historical context of Slovakia.
Adamčiak’s multifaceted program developed primarily within a cultural environment divided by a totalitarian regime into official and unofficial spheres. This brought challenges and suffering, but also moments of both small and great victories.
Lucia Gregorová Stach
He was one of the key figures of intermedia art, whose work resonates within the broader Central European context. He focused on conceptual and action art and was the author of visual poetry, graphic scores, and unconventional sound objects. He was a non-traditional musician, composer, and musicologist, as well as an organizer of musical events and happenings. He developed his experimental program gradually through several independent lines of New Music.
Since the 1960s, he has combined elements of scientific research and active artistic practice in an interdisciplinary and open way, bridging genres and forms of visual art, poetry, and music. He studied cello at the Conservatory in Žilina (1962–1968), and later musicology at the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University (1968–1973). As a musicologist, he worked at the Institute of Art Studies of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (1972–1991), where he focused on the semiotics of music, and he also lectured at several universities.
In 1974, he received a German scholarship from the city of Darmstadt and the DAAD foundation to attend the New Music Courses. He entered the art scene around the mid-1960s, when he began participating in collective projects and happenings (with Robert Cyprich, Alex Mlynárčik, Július Koller, and others).
He resumed artistic work more intensively in the 1990s – he founded the ensemble Transmusic Comp. (1989), co-founded the Society for Unconventional Music SNEH (1990) with Peter Machajdík and Michal Murín, organized the Festival of Intermedia Art in Bratislava (1991, 1992), contributed to the invitation of John Cage to Slovakia, and curated Cage's exhibition with the author’s personal participation (1992, Slovak National Gallery).
After 2010, he lived in the village of Banská Belá near Banská Štiavnica. In recent decades, Adamčiak’s work has become the subject of international interest, gaining appreciation and inspiring many young creators. His oeuvre was compiled by Michal Murín into a four-volume monograph Archive I–IV.
The first retrospective exhibition Adamčiak, Begin! was held at the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava two months after his death (2017).
Selected international exhibitions and festivals include: Between Concept and Action, Sonia Rosso Gallery, Turin (2009); European Culture Congress, Wrocław (2011); NIPAF 10, The 17th Nippon International Performance Art Festival, Tokyo, Osaka, Nagano (2010, 2011); Truth is Concrete festival, Graz (2012), etc.
His works are represented in collections such as: Avantgarde Museum – Marinko Sudac Collection, Zagreb; Bratislava City Gallery, Bratislava; Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava; and various private collections both in Slovakia and abroad.
BAŠTOVÁ 6
811 03 BRATISLAVA
TUEASDAY TO FRIDAY
14.00 - 18.00
AND DAILY BY APPOINMENT