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Wait, what?

Dávid Soboň · By Ida Želinská

Sep 15 – Nov 29, 2026

Have you read those encyclopedias? About coffee, chocolate, sushi or tea? In them, Dávid Soboň illustrates what he enjoys and tells us about it.

He has so much to say!

He has a trick for this: he writes a short text and expands on what didn't fit into words in a picture next to it. He effortlessly weaves ten different thoughts into one thread. And then we are looking at it... and we can't put it down. No 27 seconds of attention (that's the average time we spend in front of a painting in a gallery, and it's similar for books), we calmly stay on the page for a minute. "Wait! what’s this?", we think. Or, "Ah! I didn't even notice this the first time!" When twenty-seven people (really, I counted them and they are here, on the wall) are running somewhere for coffee, we realize how ingeniously conceived and funny it is. Each character is carefully stylized. One is happy, another is angry, the third is scared of something... and yet they are interconnected, everything is connected to everything in subtle gestures. We look at it and want to read on, to know how these micro-stories will end. We enjoy the visual gags and the carnival-like atmosphere in the intense, saturated color scale.

It is not a fixed range of colors, or a decoration of the content for him: colors function as a "system", which helps him to organize his stories, determine their pace and clarify the connections.

In addition to his book about coffee, the exhibition features picture books in progress: stories that are still maturing, taking shape. It took courage to pull out what, when printed "on paper" might look completely different in a few months!

He doesn't change his philosophy in them either. He still maps out the little kindnesses of everyday life that make life warm, welcoming, and caring.

— Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum
Source: danubiana.sk/en/vystavy/pockat-co