Esterházyho palác, 3. poschodie, Suterén, Bratislava
Curators: Katarína Bajcurová, Vladimír Beskid
Mária Bartuszová (1936-1996) was one of the most significant women sculptors in Slovakia. She represents the so-called organic line in Slovak sculpture in the latter part of the 20th century.
From the 1960s she was involved in abstract sculpture, showed an inclination towards biomorphic morphology and made a foray into Concrete Art. In the 1970s she was engaged in tactile sculptures for the blind, a rare involvement in Slovakia at that time. In the 1980s she created installations composed from perforated and enveloped plaster shells. She not only understood sculpture as "a trace and an imprint of space" but also achieved a suggestive expression of metaphysical properties of mass as the bearer of spiritual and existential records. The work of Mária Bartuszová belongs to the fundamental achievements of modern Slovak sculpture and it displays originality in a wider international context. The exhibition of Mária Bartuszová is based on a long-term exhibition plan of the Slovak National Gallery, aimed at tracing the oeuvre of major figures of Slovak art.
Architectural design of the exhibition: Denisa Lehocká