Latter-day Romanticism
The exhibition project entitled Nature and Landscape: Nostalgic Pathos and Utopian Idealism as Principles in the Artistic Creation of the Rising Generation focuses on showing the analogies between contemporary Slovak visual art and the art of the Romantic period. The exhibition demonstrates parallel signs of current visual art and the Romantic movement of the end of 18th and the first half of the 19th century in their topical variety, their compositions and the overall atmosphere. The close association with romanticism gets accented also in the figures of the chosen artists whose life attitudes and thinking often present an antinomy to the majority of the society. By following a specific phenomenon in the artistic creation of a specific generation the show sets its goal to draw the attention towards a new tendency in contemporary art and by that means to contribute to its theoretical discourse.
- Radislav Matuštík Scholarship Latter-day Romanticism00:00:09.909
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- Participating authors:00:00:14.722
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- My name is Mária Janušová. I am doing MA in Art History00:00:24.330
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- at the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava.00:00:28.673
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- I was awarded Radislav Matuštík Scholarship00:00:36.086
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- for my project Latter-day Romanticism:00:00:39.979
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- Nature and Landscape, Nostalgic Pathos and00:00:44.043
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- Utopian Idealism as principles in the Artistic Creation00:00:47.389
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- of the Rising Generation.00:00:50.645
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- In this project I have analyzed parallel ideas00:00:53.516
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- of the contemporary visual art and the art00:00:57.331
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- of the Romantic period. I have focused not just00:01:00.730
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- on the variety of their themes and their composition styles00:01:03.711
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- but also on the emotional perspective of the authors.00:01:06.871
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- The show is focusing on young authors00:01:10.051
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- born mostly in the second half of 1980s,00:01:13.256
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- that is, those who have no direct experience00:01:16.485
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- of the Socialist era, even though they stage some kind of protest00:01:19.806
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- in their artworks - mainly against contemporary art world.00:01:23.012
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- The show deals with topics of withdrawal into nature,00:01:27.230
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- landscape motifs, melancholy, nostalgia for past,00:01:31.361
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- utopian dreams or idealization of ominous reality.00:01:34.853
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- The first artwork I chose was a series of digital drawings,00:01:44.977
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- digital watercolor and digital paintings by Dominik Hlinka.00:01:48.780
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- He made a point to investigate Paul Cézanne’s motif00:01:52.996
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- of Mont Sainte-Victoire in southern France.00:01:56.903
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- He was fascinated by Cézanne’s fascination by the mountain.00:02:00.433
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- Since we took the residence together I had the chance00:02:04.551
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- to observe him walking around the mountain00:02:07.893
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- and exploring it from various standpoints.00:02:10.847
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- I had found that romanticizing –00:02:14.139
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- traveling nowadays in order to observe a mountain.00:02:17.418
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- I have known about Radislav Matuštík Scholarship for some time.00:02:23.623
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- I knew I wanted to apply for it one day.00:02:27.943
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- And only this year I have become eligible00:02:31.732
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- thanks to my MA studies. For a long time I was looking00:02:34.957
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- for a topic to focus on. I didn’t want just to00:02:38.314
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- build the show around one topic;00:02:41.752
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- I wanted it to achieve more than00:02:44.955
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- just scratch the surface of contemporary visual art.00:02:48.083
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- I wanted it to reflect a trend in visual art.00:02:51.320
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- I have to say it was really a great experience00:02:57.405
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- because it was the first time I curated such a big show.00:03:01.690
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- It is one of a few opportunities for young curators.00:03:09.272
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- And since Bratislava City Gallery didn’t win this year the funding00:03:13.288
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- from the Ministry of Culture, I had to limit significantly00:03:17.362
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- the production of the show.00:03:21.487
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- Mainly it meant I had to limit myself to the authors00:03:25.051
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- living in Bratislava and vicinity,00:03:29.195
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- since transporting artworks from abroad would be very expensive.00:03:33.223
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- But also the technical requirements had to be00:03:40.613
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- fulfilled in a limited fashion; I had to borrow a lot.00:03:44.626
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- It wasn’t easy.00:03:50.011
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- The artworks shown share melancholy00:03:59.468
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- and meditative nature, and are probably not00:04:03.745
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- very attractive in the eyes of the art market today.00:04:07.635
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- And that’s it.00:04:14.002