A probe into the ART FOND Collection
Exhibition: Group Exhibition
Curators: Kristína Jarošová and Beata Jablonská
Location: Bratislava City Gallery, Slovakia
Date: 2020
The exhibition entitled DREAM!? features a unique presentation of the works of key Slovak visual artists who emerged on the art scene in the 1960s up to the “post-November” generation of the 1990s. It is based on artwork reflecting the easing of social and political tensions during the Prague Spring (1968) in former socialist Czechoslovakia. In those briefly “liberated” times, the art scene fought for and achieved avant-garde self-confidence and an unparalleled authenticity. These qualities, which fundamentally shaped the art of the alternative—unofficial—scene, later influenced the predominantly neo-conceptual work of younger generations of visual artists.
The visionary bravery and radical artistic expression of these artists were not extinguished by the measures of the subsequent period of Normalization, which often led to their exclusion from official art circles. Despite their nonconformist approaches frequently facing censorship, systematic intimidation, and misunderstanding, they persevered and continued to create within the limited conditions of parallel cultural society.
Thanks to their ability to create their own frameworks—internal exile—they found fertile ground and space for dreaming and free contemplation. The reality of these “cast-out” artists has survived in their work to this day, not as superficial resistance but rather in meditative explorations of threshold values of the absolute and the transcendent, as well as in the artistic visualization of subtle lived moments and situations. Themes related to intimacy, ecology, cosmology, acoustic-visual relationships, and feminism also take center stage. Their unconventional creative expression features specific humor, irony, distinctive visual poetics, intermediality, and the blurring of boundaries between “low” and “high” art.
DREAM!? seeks to trace the path of artistic escape and the conviction that a civilization founded on humanistic ideals is more than just a utopian dream. Through powerful metaphorical and critical thinking, it does not remain at the level of romantic daydreaming but serves as a reflection on the social, political, and cultural realities of its time.
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The title of this exhibition was inspired by a 1979 letter written by artist and theorist Robert Cyprich to Czech artist Petr Štembera:
“In the words of Balzac, each of us wanted to change this world for a moment. Unfortunately, I no longer feel like doing so. I just want to help people dream. Yes, I am a professional in human dreams. The shoemaker puts shoes on people’s feet, the barber cuts their hair, and I try to help them dream. What can you give people today?…
POUR OUT THE PINK PAINT AND GILD THE SKIES!”
Today, several decades later, the work of “his” generation—artists who shared a common sense of being outsiders within the visual art scene and society at large—stands as one of the key chapters of our art history and has left a significant mark on the international art scene. Not only due to its artistic value but also because of its existential message, which remains as urgent as ever.
Today’s world is an intricate matrix of climatic and pandemic crises, exhausted traditional social systems, and the dwindling likelihood that the future can be built solely on past experiences. Thus, dreaming—or rethinking the world in a radical way, without predetermined outcomes—becomes not only a possibility but a necessity.
The Art Fond collection has created an exhibition narrative for the Bratislava City Gallery, portraying a vision of ostracized art while focusing on both its visible and hidden aspects. Unlike the Western art scene, where formal and market-driven concerns often dominated, these works emerged from a deeply personal search for the essence of the relationship between artist and art—not only on an artistic level but also on ethical, social, and ecological levels. However, the curators of the collection do not seek to confine its artistic significance and societal relevance to a historical framework. On the contrary, its pertinence lies in direct dialogue with the present, as seen in the works of contemporary artists selected within the collection’s conceptual framework.
The exhibition is divided into five thematic chapters, each presenting the local and global contexts of individual works:
(MY) UNIVERSE
POETRY OF EVERYDAYNESS. POEM – IMAGE – SOUND
POLITICS. THE INTERNAL vs. THE EXTERNAL
NATURE. NATURE AS A LIBERATED STUDIO
HIDDEN IN THE INTIMATE. IN TOUCH. IN ONESELF. IN SILENCE.
Exhibiting artists: Milan Adamčiak, Peter Bartoš, Juraj Bartusz, Mária Bartuszová, Milan Dobeš, Stano Filko, Milan Grygar, Jozef Jankovič, Igor Kalný, Michal Kern, Július Koller, Otis Laubert, Denisa Lehocká, Juraj Meliš, Alex Mlynárčik, Ilona Németh, Roman Ondak, Rudolf Sikora, Dezider Tóth / Monogramista T.D, Jana Želibská
Text by: Kristína Jarošová and Beata Jablonská