Curator:
Zsófia Kiss-Szemán
Place:
Palffy Palace
STORIES and PHENOMENA – Slovak Fine Art of the 20th Century
I. Stories of Slovak Modernism. Slovak Fine Art 1918-1948
II. Phenomena in the Slovak Fine Art in the Latter Half of the 20th Century
The exhibition provides a comprehensive picture of Slovak contemporary art in inter-war period from GMB collections. The selection of main works from the history of Slovak art presents an excellent collection of painting and sculpture of the period 1918–1948. The concept makes possible to capture parallel, though independent, richly diversified art events in Slovakia. The collection is arranged into groups in terms of chronology and style which points out the continuity in the development of fine art. The exhibition enables the visitors to create an idea of the development of art of that period based on work of both the most famous representatives of painting, such as M. Benka, J. Alexy, M. A. Bazovský, Ľ. Fulla, M. Galanda, E. Šimerová, K. Sokol, C. Majerník, J. Mudroch, J. Želibský, V. Hložník, and the less famous, but equally good and interesting artists, such as F. Reichentál, J. Flaché, J. Jakoby, E. Nemes, J. Bauernfreund, E. Nevan, L. Guderna, V. Chmel, etc. The exhibition reflects crucial artistic problems of that time, such as the issue of the traditional and the modern, the national and the international, the transformation of folklore, or de-folklorisation of art, the phenomenon of town and related loneliness of man, the conflict between the reality of war and helplessness of man in “stigmatised era” (Š. Žáry, 1944), the issue of fundamental human values, etc.
Zsófia Kiss - Szemán, curator
