Opening: 25. 3. 2025, 6 p.m.
Curator: Katarína Nádaská
Exhibition duration: 26. 3. 2025 – 14. 9. 2025
Space Q, Hlavná 27, Košice
The sculptor Alina Ferdinandy (1926 – 1974) was part of the first generation of academically trained female artists and sculptors who enjoyed professional succcss on the Czechoslovak art scene. She worked primarily in portraiture and monumental sculptures which were implemented on the interiors and exteriors of various public buildings and spaces across Slovakia, but her creative work also included the design of jewellery and plaquettes. The depictions of figures or abstract miniature scenes found in Alina’s art are notable for the distinctive sense of lyricism which the artist discerned in each of her pieces. While Alina remains a somewhat less well-known figure, her work is currently attracting a greater degree of academic attention within a broader art-historical context, and she is gaining an increasingly prominent position within the history of Slovak art.
The exhibition project titled “The Sun Breaks the Ice” introduces the life and work of Alina Ferdinandy through a presentation of surviving artworks placed within the context of the literary legacy of her personal archive. Alina was born in Košice, and although she was based in Bratislava, her work is still a focus of interest for the East Slovak Gallery through its capacity to draw connections between the regional basis of the Gallery’s collection and the wider national context. Her art also sheds light on the cultural and historical intersections in Czechoslovakia from the interwar years up to the period of normalization, the organisation of cultural work in the post-war art scene, and the emergence of the first generation of professional female sculptors as fully-fledged female artists.
Rather than offering a conventional art-historical retrospective of Alina’s work, the exhibition draws instead upon the relatively fragmented legacy of the artist’s personal archive, presenting photographs, films and written texts which elaborate on individual artworks from her oeuvre. Alina’s personal archive is preserved in the form of an extensive collection of documents from her early years to her adulthood, detailing her studies and her wealth of creative work but also offering valuable accounts of her family, her private life and her social and cultural circles. The exhibition and its forthcoming catalogue provide a deeper reflection upon specific artworks, the artist’s working approach and her personal relationships. The exhibition serves as a biographical cross-section of the art of Alina Ferdinandy, with the use of archival documents forming a uniquely fascinating and authentic context through which visitors can gain an insight into the personality of the sculptor.
In addition to showcasing the lyricism of Alina Ferdinandy’s small-scale works against the backdrop of her dramatic life, “The Sun Breaks the Ice” also explores some of the less familiar aspects of the cultural and artistic history of Slovakia.
The exhibition was supported by the Fund for the Support of Art from public sources.
Photo source: VSG Documentation Centre, scan by Milan Bobula