Monuments and Memorials (Download)
The Slovak National Uprising (SNP) remains one of the most significant topics in the history of 20th-century Slovak art. However, interest in it virtually ceased after 1989, with the sole exception being the “Optional Exhibition” on the SNP in 2014 at Kunsthalle in Košice.
Today, although the SNP has been reinterpreted over time, it continues to resonate as a canonical event in our modern history. It represents the commitment of a part of the nation to anti-fascist currents and civic values. Nonetheless, visual arts have practically lost interest in the subject, and art history has not (yet) re-engaged with it, despite the fact that the depositories of state institutions, museums, and galleries are literally filled with artifacts related to the SNP. These works were part of state commissions, targeted acquisitions, and periodic exhibitions, especially in years ending with four or nine, most intensively in the cities of the Uprising region. Strictly speaking, the Uprising was our most indigenous, regionally specific “native” theme, which can still be viewed today as an extraordinarily fertile (and long-neglected) field for historiographical research.
How did the Communist Party appropriate and privatize the Uprising? Could this process also be documented through visual art and presented in an exhibition? Could the (iconography) of the SNP be a prime example of a specific and historically closed evolution of forms? In a sense, could it serve as a school of regional (art) history?
What Uprising artifacts “rest” in our collections, and what chance do they have to speak to us today? How did the iconography of the Uprising evolve in relation to political developments and their influence on the nature of state/nation-building commissions? Is there an intrinsic quality beneath the surface of the “obligatory exercises” that trained our artists to produce an Uprising artifact every five years?
Do we, as viewers, resonate more intensely with these “patriotic” themes today, in times of current armed conflicts? Or is the SNP merely an antique for “old Slovaks”? Has this topic, after years of mandatory tradition with a vast footprint in collection funds, emptied into a sort of gallery merchandise? Does it not possess its own unique, somewhat campy quality? After decades of “stewing in its own juices,” isn’t the SNP ultimately a remarkable example of artistic experimentation, some sort of – let’s say – incestuous “over-refinement”?
The title of the exhibition is intentionally filled with question marks! The Slovak National Uprising was never entirely Slovak: beyond Soviet involvement, both contemporary and later historiographical, many Czechs, Jews, and Roma, French partisans, and an American mission fought in it. And the Slovak National Uprising was never nationwide – geographically or politically: at least a part of the nation fought on the opposite side. From the perspective of “those on the other side,” the Uprising was not even an Uprising but a “coup” – a betrayal of their own (unreflectively collaborationist) statehood… Either way, it remains a reference historical event representing a certain level of consensus in a divided society.
Thus S?N?P? – between history and mystification. The title of the exhibition is deliberately provocative, although the result: the selection and composition of the exhibits, the exhibition itself, is more or less a “salon” showcase that, in certain thematic groupings and within a more or less chronological framework, presents the artistic gains and curiosities of the visual treatment of this canonical theme.
Exhibiting Artists:
Jozef Baláž, Štefan Bednár, Ignác Bizmayer, Jarmila Čihánková, Róbert Dúbravec, Alexander Eckerdt, Ladislav Guderna, Ľudovít Fulla, Ján Hadnagy, Jan Hála, Ferdinand Hložník, Vincent Hložník, Anton Hollý, Ján Hučko, Viliam Chmel, Jozef Jankovič, Anton Jasusch, František Jonášek, Ondrej Korkoš, Jozef Kostka, Gustáv Kružič, Záboj Bohuslav Kuľhavý, Otto Lengyel, Miroslav Marček, Martin Martinček, Viliam Meško, Dezider Milly, Oto Opršal, Milan Paštéka, Dagmar Rosůlková, Ondrej Sklenka, Ladislav Snopek, Ondrej Šteberl, Alexander Trizuliak, Vladimír Vestenický, Imrich Vysočan, Ján Želibský
Opening: June 26, 2024, at 5:00 PM
Duration of the exhibition: June 26 – November 17, 2024
Curator: Petra Hanáková
Expert Collaboration: Zuzana L. Majlingová
Guided Tours for the Public: July 3, 2024, and October 22, 2024, at 5:00 PM
The gallery is established by Banskobystrický samosprávny kraj.
Supported from public funds by Fond na podporu umenia.
Photo: Lukáš Rohárik
