The exhibition “Edmund Gwerk – Parallels and Paradoxes” brings together 80 masterpieces to present an overview of the artist´s body of work from the 1920s to the 1940s. Through hundreds of photographs and documents it introduces visitors to the life and career of this key representative of inter-war painting in Slovakia and his wife, a great literary scientist Alžbeta Göllnerová-Gwerková. The exhibition also includes the intervention works by Matúš Lányi and Svätopluk Mikyta responding to the oeuvre of this outstanding painter.
Following his studies in Budapest in the 1920s, Edmund Gwerk´s career as a painter gradually crystallised into the form of late expressionism with the touch of mysticism expressing boundless strength of nature and a pantheistic picture of the world with a perfect symbiosis between the man, nature and the universe. The Slovak country, notably the mountains around Banská Štiavnica, inspired him to create spectacular whirling landscapes, painterly symphonies resembling dynamic landscape visions. Gwerk (1895 Banská Štiavnica – 1956 Bratislava) was a
very complicated person. His qualities and desires were as contradictory as were his aims and objectives. He lived his life in the fast lane, be it in seclusion or the whirl of the European cities. He promoted a genuine work, advocated creative power and individuality, and fought against dilettantism and kitsch. For him, the intellect was as crucial as the intuition. The exhibition aims to offer a new interpretation of the artist´s body of work based on the in-depth research whose findings will be published in the form of the artist’s monograph.
//////
Exhibition title: Parallels and Paradoxes
Author: Edmund Gwerk
Curator: Zsófia Kiss-Szemán
Venue: Bethlen’s House (1st floor), Dolná 8, Banská Bystrica
We are looking forward to your visit!
