From Within, Down and Above

The book, published to coincide with the retrospective exhibition of the same name by Aleksandra Vajd at the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova +MSUM in Ljubljana in 2024, traces the comprehensive work of the twenty-five-year career of this important artist and teacher, who worked at UMPRUM for 15 years as head of the Studio of Free Art IV. The aim of the publication is to encompass key issues and methods - individual and collective relations, the complexity of time, collagist approaches, self-referentiality, materiality and the ontology of the medium of photography. The concepts of the book and the exhibition seek to mirror each other, but their different forms are complementary and offer multiple approaches to the works and their meanings. The book is enriched with texts by Czech and international artists such as Anetta Mona Chişa, Edith Jeřábková, Jen Kratochvil, Vojtěch Märc, Jimena Mendoza, Teja Merhar, Ana Mizerit, Michal Novotný, Tanja Radež, Peter Rauch, Luka Savić, Adéla Svobodová and Jan Zálešák.