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Tower Part 3 is the last of three parallel exhibitions by the artist duo Selmeci Kocka Jusko, with the first two parts taking place at Šopa and VUNU galleries in Košice, Slovakia. The three exhibitions are linked by the motif of the tower. Here, the tower represents not only a human structure with defensive, representative, economic, or surveillance functions, but also a special type of time unit used in the oil industry. The term tour, pronounced like the English word tower, refers to an eight-hour period that divides the 24-hour mining operation into three equal segments: daylight, evening, and graveyard tour. Thus, the tower — a structure reaching upward — is not only built by the additive layering of material but also symbolically composed of stacked time segments, devoid of pause or rest.

An interest in units of measurement has long accompanied the practice of Selmeci Kocka Jusko. The compulsion to categorize everything by size or quantity has, for centuries, been central to how we relate to the world. Alongside standard measurement systems — such as the metric — they also explore alternative and intuitive ways of determining scale, for example, through the amount of labor performed, which lies at the heart of the economic system we live in. Rest, in this context, emerges as a form of resistance against a regime that would prefer the oil industry’s uninterrupted operations replicated across all spheres of life.

In the objects you are looking at now, measurement is reflected indirectly. Their forms are loosely based on artificial nests for small animals — structures that humans use to simulate natural shelters within human infrastructure, allowing animals to rest and wait without the threat of predators. The size of the entrance hole itself becomes a kind of measurable unit, determining which species are still entitled to shelter inside and which must look elsewhere. Some psychological theories define the feeling of safety through the fear of losing it. In this light, passive rest can quickly become an active search for protection. One species of penduline tit even equips its felted nests with a larger false entrance, designed to mislead predators, while the bird enters through a smaller, hidden one. Regeneration, which depends on a sense of safety, seems to be continually disrupted, and uncertainty becomes an inevitable part of life.

We can quantify almost anything.

But can we measure rest?

Or safety?

Selmeci Kocka Jusko is the artistic duo of Alex Selmeci (*1994) and Tomáš Kocka Jusko (*1994). Both are graduates of the Faculty of Arts of the Technical University in Košice and of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. They have recently had solo exhibitions at VUNU (2025, 2022, and 2019) and Šopa galleries (2025) in Košice; MeetFactory, Prague (2024); Galerie NoD, Prague (2023); 35m2, Prague; and the East Slovak Gallery in Košice (2020). Their work has also featured in group exhibitions at PLATO, Ostrava; Kunstverein Gastgarten, Hamburg; Garage Gallery, Prague; the 34th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts; and Futura, Prague. Next year, together with Jakub Jansa and Peter Sit, they will represent the Czech and Slovak Republics at the 61st Venice Biennale. They live and work in Prague.

Technological support for the exhibition: Antonín Gazda