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2009
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2007

Slovak Picture (Anti-Picture)
20th Century in Slovak Visual Art
27. October 2008 - 1. Marec 2008

Idea and concept of the exhibition: Katarína Bajcurová, General Director of SNG
Exhibition Curators: Katarína Bajcurová, Aurel Hrabušický, Katarína Müllerová
Architectural design: Jindřich Smetana, Tomáš Kulík, Petr Doležal – Atelier ANIMA
Exhibition graphic design: Martin Mistrík, Pavel Choma

The exhibition was supported by Václav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, and Ivan Gašparovič, President of the Slovak Republic

Organisers: The Administration of Prague Castle in cooperation with the Slovak National Gallery, with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic, the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Institute in Prague.

The exhibition Slovak Picture (Anti-Picture) with the subtitle 20th Century in Slovak Visual Art, prepared by the Slovak National Gallery and the Administration of Prague Castle, from an initiative of the Slovak Institute in Prague, on the 90th anniversary of the establishment of Czechoslovakia, in the Hippodrome Riding School of Prague Castle, presents the most significant treasures of Slovak Visual Art of the last Century to the Czech and international public. The name of the exhibition cites the name of one of the “anti-pictures” of the significant, prematurely deceased conceptualist Július Koller (1939 – 2007), whose art is now gaining wider and wider international appreciation. In this sense, the phrase “anti-picture” symbolically opens new areas for thought, and refers to indefiniteness as well as the provocativeness of contemplation of our existence. One of the leitmotivs of the exhibition is the question, how was Slovak art, in what was it specific and how did it see the surrounding world and how did it react?
Therefore, a “picture” in the name of the exhibition is understood more generally: we would like to express Slovak art, mainly from a viewpoint of its relationship to specific – picture and metaphoric – perception of the surrounding world.
Pieces selected for the exhibition can be labelled as “socio-sensitive”, containing thoughtful intentions and messages, from the background of which it is possible to read several fundamental historical moments, events and problems which influenced and determined the fate of individuals as well as affected the fate of the whole of society, not only in a Slovak but also in a Czecho-slovak historical context. We believe that illustrative hints, analogies of many social and private events and situations will be understandable and familiar to Czech visitors.
What we were most interested in were the overlaps, footsteps and reflections of the life we lived. We included these in the basic “thematic” junctions – focal points through history without focusing upon minute details or sequences of opinions. In this way, an observer and visitor to the exhibition could, step by step, decipher the schedule of visual information – the message which a piece of art can deliver about the world within the world in which it appeared, lived and functioned.
Topics were selected on the basis of seeking an overlap of art with the sphere of social-political, national, general humanistic, ecological, scientific, the universe as well as the internal projection of visual art ideas and paintings. The exhibition consists of seven sections (apart from the monumental prologue referring to the tragic events of 1968): War and Civilization, Slovak Myth, Socialist Anti-Picture, Out of the City, Poetry about the Universe Cosmic Poetry, Other Worlds and The Global Village. While at the beginning our picture story of the Slovak World roughly follows a chronological line, later the topics are juxtaposed into several “branches”, overlapped and directed towards the most recent horizons. The suffering of the human and mankind in the war cataclysms of the 20th Century, apocalyptic and utopian visions of the arrival of a new world, social antagonisms of new urban civilisations, the entry of modernisation of society and forcing an urban way of life… Seeking a national identity of Slovak art – expression of life and myth of the home country, country modus of the existence of a Slovak person and his co-existence with nature, memories of the mythical routes of national existence… Alternative features of power, the existence of a human and artist within a network of interpersonal relationships in totalitarian – socialist – society, gestures of political and ecological protests, protection of the environment as a political issue and nature as media, virtual misappropriation of the universe and expansion into supernatural heights, escapes into other worlds, touches of the transcendental, the unknown and the divine… New virtual and real “paradise” of a global consumer, post-communist world… These are only some of the sequences within the abovementioned topics which are awaiting the visitor.

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