Milan Adamčiak: Meeting Activity
The exhibition Meeting Activity presents a selected collection of works related to the participatory activities of Milan Adamčiak (1946 Ružomberok–2017 Banská Belá), which treat the score as a tool for organizing action, collective behavior, and perception of the environment. Adamčiak's works show that a score does not have to be a plan for music; it can be a diagram of a situation, a sound and spatial project, a method of thinking, or a tool for subtle social analysis. This approach has its roots in his early work – from Fluxus instructions to late floor plan concepts that use space, text, and physical action.
The score as observation and disruption of structures
The title of the exhibition is based on a small graphic score, Meeting Activity. Its rhythmic drawing structure resembles a record of repetitive actions – activities that usually take place outside the realm of artistic interest. Adamčiak, however, elevates it to the subject of musical interpretation. This is typical of his approach: a neutral, almost anonymous form that raises questions about what can be understood as artistic action and what remains invisible in the records of everyday life. The score functions here as a framework, not as a prescription.
We find a similar logic in early Fluxus text-action concepts such as Sisyphean Tasks and Monoactions (1965). These instructions work with tasks without a clear outcome. They show that creation does not arise outside of life, but precisely in the space between routine and its disruption. As early as the 1960s, Adamčiak formulated, especially in experimental poetry, that the "useless" can be productive—and that art can function as a tool for thinking about the everyday structures of life.
The work of John Cage (1912–1992) was a key starting point for Adamčiak. He was not an imported model for him, but a methodological partner: a man who showed many artists that a work can be thought of as an idea, a situation, and a game of chance. The exhibition recalls Adamčiak's 1992 poem for John Cage – a speech performed at the opening of Cage's exhibition at the Slovak National Gallery – as well as his interpretations of Cage's works Cartridge Music (1960) and Branches (1978) in 1994, which were created in collaboration with Hugh Davies, and others in the context of New Music Evenings, curated by Daniel Matej.
TRANSMUSIC COMP.: a space for collective experimentation
The collective dimension of Adamčiak's work is most clearly evident in the context of the loose association for new music TRANSMUSIC COMP. (TMC), which operated during the transformative years of 1989–1996 and later resumed its activities. TMC was not an ensemble but an organism: an open group of performers, musicians, visual artists, and non-musicians.
Works such as Sound Objects for TRANSMUSIC COMP. (1989/2016) show that the musical-spatial action was not driven by virtuosity, but by the ability to define the way of interacting with objects and between players. TMC changed ensembles and instruments, testing the boundaries between object, gesture, and social behavior. This practice had parallels in earlier widespread musical events, such as Water Music from 1970, documented by photographs by Juraj Bartoš, and its invitation from the Ensemble Comp. period (Adamčiak, Cyprich, Revallo). The principle of the situation is already clearly present here: music is the result of the organization of conditions, not a sound template.
The exhibition also opens up the possibility of reading Adamčiak as an analyst of today's cultural situation. After 2023, Slovakia is experiencing a weakening of the autonomy of cultural institutions, interference in their functioning, a rise in nationalism, and increasing distrust of experimental work. This state of affairs—the symptoms of which are evident in the practice of several contemporary artistic and curatorial collectives—creates an environment in which art is once again shifting into the gaps, into alternative, community, or ad hoc spaces.
Adamčiak's poems, scores, and projects, especially those based on inconspicuous processes, function in this context as models that show how art can be shifted, for example, into the space of an administrative meeting or a work task. They teach us to read routine as a structure that can be broken down, rearranged, and reinterpreted. They remind us that works of art arise all the more intensely in places where free creation is not supported.
This analogy follows on from recent spontaneous actions by the independent scene, such as the performative ensemblu intervention ParkingSong, based on one of the scores, a copy of which we are exhibiting as a sketch from Adamčiak's archive (1979). In Opava, and later in another version at the SNG Bratislava, it was performed in March 2025 by an "improvisational protest ensemble" led by Fero Király. We can read it as a musical gesture, as well as an expression of solidarity and resistance to the curtailment of cultural space. Similarly, Meeting Activity from 1970s shows that creation can take place even in the most unlikely places: for example, in the transitional zones between various obligations.
Archive, diagram, possibility
The exhibition, which is more archival-analytical in nature, also includes archival materials, sketches, notes, poems, and instructions from Adamčiak's personal collection and private collections. There are also reminders of Adamčiak's concept of the imaginary country Panfília, such as Sketch of a Coat of Arms for Květa Fulierová (1982). In Adamčiak's thinking, the archive takes the form of an open diagram: it is not a collection of finished works, but a reservoir of situations waiting to be interpreted. This also applies to musical scores, whose meaning is only created when they are activated.
Adamčiak does not offer an escape from reality, but a way of thinking about it, of perceiving the structures that surround us, of testing their boundaries and exploring forms of cooperation and freedom. In an environment where institutions are once again struggling with a gradual loss of autonomy, there is a growing need for community initiatives, and his diverse, activating work continues to be urgent and inspiring.

Lucia Gregorová Stach

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