18 Sep 2014

Opening of Dom umenia/Kunsthalle Bratislava

The first project of the newly established Bratislava Kunsthalle consists of eight equivalent parts, each of those being a fragment of one of the important exhibitions that were held during the period surveyed. Today, after the passage of roughly twenty years, representatives of the younger and youngest generation of Slovak curators have selected a significant action, citing it, on the one hand, as remembrance of a crucial undertaking, and on the other hand as homage to its actors.

While Meciarism was in power it seemed that an ideological character would again be imposed upon art (just as previously, under socialism) to the detriment of free, independent artistic creation. That this did not happen was thanks also to the artists and curators who valued their artistic expertise and professional freedom more than the support which they might have received from the state in return for toadying. Hence, paradoxically, in the years 1993 – 1998 there were some dozens of curatorial exhibitions which to this day form the foundation of artistic thinking in our democratic milieu. They also guarantee the continuity of the independent principles of unofficial art before 1989, on which a great part of our cultural identity is based. Paradox 90. is an exhibition that gives homage to these projects and the main individual figures involved. Eight curators have prepared a selection of conceptions and works from amongst the principal exhibitions of the 1990s.


General Partner / Tatra banka
Founder of Slovak Center of Visual Arts / Národné osvetové centrum
With financial support / Ministerstvo kultúry Slovenskej republiky
Partner / Bratislava