The exhibition The Past Won’t Let You Go presents the art of Veronika Rónaiová and Peter Rónai as a dialogue between two distinctive artistic strategies that, despite their different visual language, share an interest in the memory of the image and in its repetition, appropriation and transformation over time. Veronika Rónaiová draws primarily on painting, which she layers, repaints and combines with photography, collage or assemblage. Peter Rónai works with photography, video, objects, installations and performance art, often reinterpreting familiar images, objects or cultural symbols within new contexts.
Both artists repeatedly revisit their earlier work, personal archives and existing paintings, which they reuse as material for creating new meanings. In their work, the past is not a closed archive but a living layer that can be re-read, rewritten and updated. At the same time, their art shares a sense of irony, they both work with the fluid nature of identity and both explore the extent to which an existing image or one’s own past can be reused and given a different meaning.
VERONIKA RÓNAIOVÁ (b. 1951) studied in Bratislava, first under Rudolf Fila at the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts (1966–1970), and subsequently under Orest Dubay and Vladimír Gažovič at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design (fine art graphics, 1970–1976). In 1978–1979, she was the recipient of a Ľudovít Fulla Scholarship. From 1976 to 1998, Rónaiová worked as a freelance artist. She subsequently taught at the Josef Vydra School of Applied Arts in Bratislava, the Faculty of Architecture at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava and the Faculty of Education at Trnava University in Trnava. In 2002, she was made an associate professor at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. Since 2020, she has again worked as a freelance artist. She lives in Bratislava. Her works are held in numerous public and private collections in Slovakia, including the Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava City Gallery, the Ján Koniarik Gallery in Trnava, the Central Slovak Gallery in Banská Bystrica and the Považie Gallery of Art in Žilina. Several of her works are also held by the Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové.
PETER RÓNAI (b. 1953) studied at Bratislava’s Academy of Fine Arts and Design in 1970–1974 and the Hungarian College of Fine Arts in Budapest in 1974–1977. From 1977 to 1989, Rónai worked as a freelance artist. After 1989, he participated in a number of international performance art gatherings in Nové Zámky, and in 1990 he founded the Nová vážnosť (New Sincerity) art group together with Július Koller and Milan Adamčiak. In 1992, he began teaching at Brno University of Technology’s Faculty of Fine Arts, where he was an associate professor and head of the Studio of Conceptual Tendencies. In 2011, he was made a professor at the Faculty of Arts in Košice, where he continues to teach. He lives in Bratislava. His works are held in numerous public and private collections around the world, including the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, the Hungarian National Gallery, the Ludwig Forum in Aachen, the Slovak National Gallery, the Moravian Gallery in Brno, Prague City Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové.
The exhibition was supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the Statutory City of Hradec Králové.
