A design kiosk for the 1960s market has conquered the art world

Moments. SEFO Triennial 2024, a showcase of contemporary Central European art. Installation at the Olomouc Museum of Art.
The kiosk was originally created to sell newspapers, cigarettes, food, drinks or tickets. The K67 kiosk by Slovenian architect Saša Mächtig was simply intended to serve in everyday urban traffic. Its bright colours, easy maintenance and high variability meant that it quickly crossed the borders of the former Yugoslavia and reached Poland, Japan, Kenya, Indonesia and New Zealand. But the product for the most common consumer use, thanks to its attractive design, has also become an iconic exhibition piece, for example in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

It can also be seen at the Olomouc Museum of Art, where the legendary fibreglass kiosk K67 was used as a peculiar time capsule by Polish artist Robert Kuśmirowski (1973) as part of this year’s SEFO 2024 Triennial. In the unfolded kiosk, he created an impressive installation using objects and objects from an even older period, attempting to reflect the transience of time and human nostalgia for the past.

The Slovenian designer and architect Saša Mächtig (1941) invented the kiosk in 1966 by accident, when he overheard a conversation in a Ljubljana café with officials about the need for new kiosks in the city. When they went into production a year later, their creator certainly had no idea that the K67 would become not only a worldwide hit with kiosk vendors, but even part of the collections of various museums.

STORIES FROM THE SEFO TRIENNIAL 2024

The basic colour was bright red, but yellow, green… The kiosk could be assembled and combined as needed, offering many variations. It was used as a newsagent, a backroom for builders, an ice cream stand or a ticket office for ski lift tickets. This versatility was the basis of its global success. In total, more than 7,000 units were produced. 

Kiosk on the road

Robert Kuśmirowski knew kiosks from his childhood. When he found out that one of them had been saved in Žilina, Slovakia, he decided to use it as the basis for an installation called Past Future Anabasis in the Triple Hall of the Olomouc Museum of Art. Kiosk K67, which served as a backdrop for Mr. Lokaj’s fruit and vegetable shop in Žilina, embarked on a complicated and dangerous journey to Olomouc. Due to its technical condition and age, it was not at all certain that the move would be successful and that the kiosk would become the basis of the exhibition installation for the SEFO 2024 Triennial.

Everything worked out well, and Kuśmirowski was able to dismantle the iconic sales kiosk into the Trilodí space and fill it with items that are decades older than the work itself. In this way, the artist combined the futuristic look of the kiosk, which at the time of its creation was looking to the future, with a nostalgic regard for the transience of iconic objects of previous eras.

The Olomouc Museum of Art managed to acquire another kiosk, K67, which is folded into a basic model on the terrace adjacent to the Triplex. Visitors to the SEFO 2024 Triennial can thus experience what it was like when someone spent all their working hours in this somewhat claustrophobic space.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

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