2023
Working with the SNG collections offers many opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. With the help of my colleague Marek Gilányi, the exhibited silver mirror unveiled to us the history of its origin. Thanks to ongoing research with my colleague Jana Luková, we are discovering more about its original owner and the circumstances of its acquisition into the SNG collections.
2022
As of November this year, artist Marcel Mališ will be painting his authorial replica of the lost work in the SNG atrium under a changed title ThanksSeeming of the Czechoslovak People. How precisely he will copy the origin is up to his decision. The gallery will be his "studio" and the picture will develop in front of the public eye. The painting action will become a starting point of a new experimental genre - an art undertaking which reflects our thinking about the status of the national gallery as an educational institution of today; a place of asking questions and looking for answers.
Thanks to a comprehensive monographic exposition of Július Koller you will get to know the personality and work of one of our most famous conceptual artists, whose name has been resounding abroad as well. The exposition has come into being by moving the private collection of Koller′s works from the Antimuseum of J.K. residing on Zámočnícka Street in Bratislava to the premises of the Slovak National Gallery. Now, the best from the original museum, together with exhibits, will find its home in three rooms of the 1st floor of the Esterhazy Palace under the original name Antimuseum of J.K. The new installation will be completed by author′s works from the SNG Fund.
Before we open the new site of the Slovak National Gallery, we decided to look at the memories of the Bridge - probably the most prominent and most debated part of the gallery complex. The digital installation Heterotopia gives the Bridge a voice. It speaks of itself, the world around it, and what it heard about itself from others; how it was shaped by the vision of its architect and the history and aura of its location. Everything that left its mark on the Bridge over the years will be revealed to those looking at it or walking through it.
The mission of the experimental expositions is to present further content along with the collections in a wider cultural context and to provide a space for cultural experiments.
The Kornel and Naďa Földvári Library is a project dedicated to Slovak writer, satirist, art and literary critic, book collector and translator, Kornel Földvári. Preparations started together with Peter Krištúfek, writer and director, who for a long time has searched for a method of preserving Földvári's large collection of books.
At a time when SNG was still chasing novelties and even risked acquiring a diploma project of a promising graduate, a performance Man on the River (2011) by Tomáš Šoltýs (1985) was created. The image of the man, the artist himself, who, as Christ walked, "flowed" on the waves of the Danube, had a nature of an endurance exercise - it was a demanding, life-investing performance. It got noticed not only by the cultural audiences but also by the city's security forces.
Project Seven Liberal Thoughts on the Arts, a collective work by curators at the SNG, responds to the flourishing of online culture during the quarantine measures because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Even prior to that, the SNG's digital footprint was relatively pronounced, and therefore under the new conditions it came naturally to us to expand our online range.