Recreation of the "Focus Your Attention on the Chimneys of the House" action by Marián Mudroch, the opening event of the "First Open Studio" on November 19, 1970
Otvorený ateliér 1970 (The First Open Studio 1970)
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
Time...Space II, (The Sky Gallery of the Past)Slovak variant
Time...Space II, (The Sky Gallery of the Past)French version
Time...Space II, (The Sky Gallery of the Past)English version
Out of the City
Diagram and TopographyFrom the „Diagrams of Good and Evil“ series
Topography XXXII
Out of the City
Out of the City II
Out of the City
Time...Space I
Time...Space VIII (Gallery of Time I)
Exclamation Mark VII
Autotype
Topography
Topography
Topography
Tribute to the Intersection of a Meridian
?!+...Joint project: Július Koller, Rudolf Sikora, Igor Gazdík, Stano Filko
Antihappening. System of Subjective Objectivity
Non-Invitation to Non-exhibition
Non-Invitation to Illusionism
Shockialism
Nothing
U.F.O. Universal Fantastic Occupation
Psycho-physical Occupation of Space by a Universal Fantastical Object P.O.P. U.F.O.
Cosmohumanistic Culture
Season ticket – Shockialism (Antihappening)
Július Koller Invites you to Space-Time Definition of Psychophysical Activity of Matter
Július Koller USSR ??
Orientation: Sport – Game (Antihappening)
For 365. (Antihappening)
S.O.S. Socialist Occupation of Subject
Contact. Man–Nature–Things– Materials
? Telegram
Non-art!
Universal Futurological PersonalityFrom the U.F.O. series
J.K. Censorship (U.F.O.)
Attention
Subjectively Objective Situation
Ping-Pong, J.K.From the U.F.O. series
Ping-PongFrom the U.F.O. series
Július Koller at his exhibition-action "JK Ping-Pong Club" in Youth Gallery, Bratislava
Subjectively Objective SituationFrom the U.F.O.-naut J.K. series
Subjectively Objective SituationFrom the U.F.O.-naut J.K. series
Ping-PongFrom the U.F.O. series: Universal Physical Cultural Operation-Defence
Ping-PongFrom the U.F.O. series
Universal Fantastic Orientation (U.F.O.)U.F.O.-naut J.K. series
Universal Folkloristic OrnamentationU.F.O.-naut J.K. series
Universal Fictitious AnnouncementsFrom the U.F.O. series
UFO Ganek Gallery
UFO in Romania"Sloboda" magazine
"Život" Magazine
Floorplan of Rudolf Sikora's House in Tehelná Street where the First Open Studio was held
First Open Studio Programme
Czechoslovakiaaction photodocumentation - Viliam Jakubík, Vladimír Kordoš,Marián Mudroch
Goodevening (Tribute to R. Lichtenstein)action photodocumentation - Viliam Jakubík, Vladimír Kordoš,Marián Mudroch
Reminiscence of Dalmatia (Topographic Swimming Pool)Project for a Topographic swimingpool made by yellow epoxide, blue water, ø 450 cm
Attention falling Plaster!, Conceptual intervetion on Rudolf Sikora's House at Tehelná 32, „First Open Studio“,
Attention Falling Plaster
AMANITA MUSCARIA — The Possibility of Saving During the Entire Year of 1971
Atmosphere 1970 Not-breathable (Grossery)
Three Graces | FUGGA A SOGGETTI FOR 3 PHILIPS
curator: Ivana Janković, MSU Zagreb
- Focus Your Attention on the Chimneys of the House
The Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, in collaboration with the Institute for the Research of the Avant-Garde and the Marinko Sudac Collection is opening an exhibition of Rudolf Sikora (Žilina, 1946) and Július Koller (Piestany, 1939 — Bratislava, 2007), notable protagonists of the Eastern-European Neo-Avant-Garde scene.
Works of these artists are a part of some important collections and museums such as: Tate Museum, New York's MoMA, galleries in Bratislava, Generali Foundation, in Kontakt Collection of Este Bank, and in many other European galleries and private collections. The exhibited works are a part of a collection of Avant-Garde and Neo-Avant-Garde 20th c. European art - the Marinko Sudac Collection - which, with rich documentary material works as a platform for the research of the artistic practices through the Institute for the Research of the Avant-Garde.
On this occasion, the Zagreb audience will get a chance to see for the first time the work of two artists who have, with their works, marked the direction of (Czecho)-Slovak art in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
After 1968, during the (Czecho)-Slovak repression all the "experimental" (conceptual) artists were forbidden to exhibit in public galleries in the then Czechoslovakia. Some were even expelled from the Artists' Society due to "cultural-political reasons", while every attempt for exhibiting abroad was mostly sabotaged by the state apparatus. This atmosphere forced them to subversive action, organisation of exhibitions and other forms of presentation in alternative spaces. This includes exhibitions and meetings in artists' studios and private apartments, actions and public events, or even organising a fictitious gallery, as well as the use of various unconventional, experimental methods such as Mail-art, poster as a form of exhibition, Land Art, site-specific events or situational dramas.
A similar situation can as well be observed in other countries behind the Iron Curtain, with certain specific elements and depending on the level of the regime control (and with that the artistic freedom), which resulted in the emergence of many independent galleries and activities in ex-Yugoslavia (Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, Novi Sad), as well as in Czechoslovakia, Poland, or Hungary.
In the turbulent time of the so-called Czechoslovakian normalisation, Koller and Sikora critiqued the officially proposed "modernist painting", the critique of the system of power, an the fundamental problems of the origin of humans and civilisations, cosmology, ecology, esotericism, and astronomy.Alongside Koller's well-known photographs and mail-art works from the "UFO-naut" series, documentacion of the fictitious "UFO - Ganek Gallery" on the highest top of the same name in the High Tatras, documentation of his anti-happenings and actions, there will also be exhibited Sikora's emblematic works which, until now, were exhibited rarely or only partially - the "Topography" series, land-art action documentation "Our of the City", and some of their joint "utopian" projects. The centrepoint of the exhibition are the works exhibited in a unique exhibiting space of the so-called "First Open Studio", held in the private house of Rudolf Sikora in Bratislava. There, the most important innovative (Cezcho)-Slovakian Neo-Avant-Garde artists of the 1960s and 1970s were presented - those engaging in Conteptual art, Body Art, actions, Land Art, Object Art, installations, Fluxus, kinetic art. The one-day event gathered 19 artists from three different generations: Milan Adamčiak (1946), Peter Bartoš (1938), Václav Cigler (1929), Róbert Cyprich (1951-1996), Milan Dobeš (1929), Igor Gazdík (1943), Viliam Jakubík (1945), Július Koller (1939-2007), Vladimír Kordoš (1945), Ivan Kříž-Vyrubiš (1941), Otis Laubert (1946), Juraj Meliš (1942), Alex Mlynárčik (1934), Marián Mudroch (1945), Jana Shejbalová-Želibská (1941), Rudolf Sikora (1946), Ivan Štěpán (1937), Dezider Tóth (1947), Miloš Urbásek (1932).
Organisers: Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, the Institute for the Research of the Avant-Garde (Zagreb), Marinko Sudac Collection (Zagreb)
Curator: Ivana Janković
Exhibition setup: Negra Nigoević, Ivana Janković
Exhibition assistant: Dorotea Fotivec
Volounteers: Mihaela Zajec, Marek Varga, Silvia Zaplatić, Katarina Šviglin, Ivan Duždagić
The exhibition has been realised with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia.
Exhibition opening | SLOVAKIAN NEO-AVANT-GARDE | Rudolf Sikora, Július Koller and the First Open StudioMuseum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
