Jaro Varga

Something has happened to all the dust jackets and book covers in Jaro Varga’s library. They have been fully or partially replaced by slogans and exclamations documented on public walls, facades, and toilet stalls. Like any larger library of its generation, this collection tracks the typical zigzag of the Eastern European intellectual since the 1990s, gravitating from a burning interest in poststructuralism toward radical political theory and all the disappointments it can hold.

In his installation In Somebody Else’s Library, Varga superimposes his archive of street graffiti onto the volumes, turning them into marginalia. The space is a lived-in study but no longer a safe retreat. The raw voices of the street bleed through the high-theory texts, proving that any withdrawal from politics was always an illusion. In this scriptorium, the margins have overrun the page.

Jaro Varga (1982, Trebišov, Slovakia) is an artist and curator whose work engages with geopolitical topography, the production and archiving of knowledge, and forgotten moments in history. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, including at Museu Tàpies, Barcelona; Museu Picasso de Barcelona; Triennial Kortrijk 2021; SEFO 2021 Triennial, Olomouc; Ludwig Museum, Budapest; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul; and the 6th Prague Biennale. Varga was artist in residence at the Delfina Foundation, London, and Quartier 21, Vienna. He lives in Prague.