100 years of ZUZANA CHALUPová
The exhibition "100 years of ZUZANA CHALUPOVÁ" at the Vojtech Löffler Museum in Košice is installed in cooperation with the Gallery of Insit Art in Kovačica and the civic association Regional Center for the Western Balkans on the occasion of 100 years since the birth of the Insit painter Zuzana Chalupová (1925—2001). The roots of Insit art in Kovačica date back to the 1930s. Local residents began to capture everyday life, traditions, folklore and natural motifs. To this day, they express a strong emotional connection to their birthplace using the local artistic language. The work of Kovačica painters is characterized by vibrant colors, idealized figures and rich details that create a unique atmosphere. The authors work with the contextuality of realities and memories of them, applying a full color palette. They use mainly oil paints and prefer bright shades. In compositions full of nostalgic optimism, they depict the world of their childhood with special intuitive expressive categories. It is these categories that make the works of Kovačice authors exceptional in the world of naive art.
The exhibition "100 years of Zuzana Chalupová" is a celebration of the centenary of the birth of one of the leading Kovačice artists, whose work has crossed the European cultural circle and become part of the UNESCO world heritage. It is also an opportunity to present the work of the founding and current generation of Kovačice artists. From a formal point of view, it represents a challenging curatorial intention.
The exhibition is divided into four parts, which correspond to each other in meaning and content. The curatorial intention in creating the exhibition scenario was to supplement the works of the Insit artists with the collection of ceramics by Vojtech Löffler, thereby creating not only a simple connection between time and plot, but also to outline the concept of the proto-image of folk creativity and craft, art and human labor, from which the visual art of the Kovačice Insit stems.
The Kovačík insita, which we bring to the Košice audience through the exhibition "100 years of ZUZANA CHALUPA" at the Vojtech Löffler Museum, is, with its uniqueness and quality, a living and valued expression of Slovak Vojvodina culture in the world.
The first part of the exhibition "...I am Zuzana Chalupová — what I paint is me" consists of a selection of twenty works by Zuzana Chalupová (1925—2001). In her figurative compositions, Chalupová creates a record of genre scenes of everyday village life and work. The artist's artistic expression is significantly detailed and narrative. Her canvases are like time preserves preserving the magical gaze of a child, interpreting the demanding daily routine of immigrants in an idealizing canon of beauty, harmony, purity and innocence. The artist works with a distinctive iconography of depicting customs and detailed recorded objects of material culture. Zuzana Chalupová's work represents, in its entirety, a highly humane artistic legacy that speaks to today's people with its humanity, sincerity, certainty and intensity of the depicted statement.
The second part of the exhibition "... I created only my own sky, which I colored with the color of sunflowers..." presents five selected works by Martin Jonáš (1924—1996). The author's work is characterized by high-quality drawings, a unique and easily recognizable artistic language, with which he iconically depicted the work and life of the lowland settlers. His unique visual expressiveness depicting figures with enormous limbs and disproportionately small heads created an unmistakable visual canon. Depth, detail, power of expression, humor and acceptance of fate go hand in hand in his works, which makes his work unique and strongly standing out even among the intuitive creators of Kováčice. The fruits and ears of corn, sunflowers, wheat and pumpkins express in his works not only "colorful fire" - his personal relationship to the soil and harvest, but also take on transcendental meanings and symbolism. Jonáš's work is appreciated and was sought out directly in Kovačica by prominent figures and art collectors from all over the world.
The third part of the exhibition "from source to roots" is dedicated to a curatorial selection of 15 works by the founding Kovačík art generation: Jan Bačur, Mihal Bireš, Vladimír Boboš, Alžbeta Čižik, Jan Garaj, Pavel Hrk, Jan Husarik, Jan Kniazovic, Martin Paluška, Ondrej Pilh, Mihal Povolni, Jan Sokol, Jan Strakušek, Jan Venjarski and Ondrej Venjarski. Each of the authors represents his or her vision of the world of the Lowland Slovaks with a unique visual language and emotionally gripping expressive categories, and they remind us in our homeland of the importance of the roots from which we come.
The fourth part of the exhibition "From Roots to Branches" presents the work of nine contemporaries who are the successors of the founding generation of Kovačice Insita artists: In the works of: Ján Glózik, Pavel Hajko, Nada Koreň, Anna Kotvášová, Marina Petrik, Pavel Povolný Juhás, Štefan Varga, Zuzana Vereska and Jan Žolnaj, we learn about shifts and memories of childhood and contemporary life in Vojvodina through the eyes of contemporaries... The unanswered question for art historians and art theorists for now remains whether Kovačice Insita will shift in time towards current artistic tendencies and will speak to us in an updated language with special visual formulas, or will it remain a preserved time lock in the history of fine arts.