exhibition opening: 20. 2. 2020
duration: 21. 2 . 2020 – 2. 8. 2020
curators: Miroslav Kleban, Katarína Nádaská
East Slovak Gallery, Hlavná 27
The purchase of new acquisitions was supported by the Košice Self-Governing Region and the Slovak Arts Council.
The exhibition project 7140+ presents new artworks added to the collection of the East Slovak Gallery between 2015 and 2020. The ambition of the exhibition is to present the East Slovak Gallery - Museum of Art as a memory and collection institution, which acquires, preserves, presents and professionally evaluates the cultural heritage of Slovakia.
The acquisitions presented prove, that the gallery acquired high-quality works of regional and central European significance into the collection. The collection fund preserved by the gallery thus continues to demonstrate the present and the past of the artistic life in Eastern Slovakia with an overlap into the Central European context.
The exhibition aims to present the results of the work of the gallery's expert team, which, by researching the fundamental themes of the collection, has systematically built up a collection of new acquisitions of 207 works from which this representative selection is exhibited. It is a professional work normally not accessible and visible to the visitor. The presentation of the outcome signifies the evaluation of several years of research, communication and fieldwork, which translates the ephemeral nature of this activity into a concrete tangible result.
The exhibition presents a diverse combination of works from 19th century art to the present. The works are installed independently of chronological order, art technique or style. Their exposure in one exhibition is a testimony of their compact identity (despite differences) as an integral part of a single collection. The contradictions or even paradoxes created by “contiguous” installation of the artworks from the 19th to 21st centuries are a credible testimony of the durability of the cultural value of the works presented, where neither the aesthetic and stylistic aspect nor the subjective impression play a role.
The collection of the gallery focuses on four main areas - 19th century art, the interwar period, with special focus on the avant-garde context of Košice Modernism, post-war art and the latest circuit is contemporary art. The acquisition strategy of the gallery focuses on complementing the authors´ collections of the most important artists of the fund, as well as individual thematic groups. The gallery acquired the artworks mainly through purchase, but also as gifts and by transfer.
The acquired works complement and enrich all the main areas of the collection. An important part of the acquisition process was the creation of a new focal point of interest, the contemporary art works. They create a previously absent set of works by contemporary artists of the zero generation.
The role of the collection and memory institution, such as the gallery, is to preserve the cultural heritage for future generations. It is our success to present to our visitors a high-quality art collection that helps us to get to know our roots better and where the cultural heritage belonging to us all is preserved. We are currently quantifying it in the East Slovak Gallery by the number of 7140+ works.
