The Sun Breaks the Ice – the Life and Work of Sculptor Alina Ferdinanda

Curator: Katarína Nádaská
Exhibition duration: 26. 3. 2025 – 14. 9. 2025
Hall Q, Hlavná 27, Košice

Sculptor Alina Ferdinandy (1926 – 1974) belongs to the first Slovak generation of academically educated female artists – sculptors, who have worked professionally on the Czechoslovak art scene. Her work is characterized mainly by portrait and monumental work, which she used in the interiors and exteriors of public buildings and spaces in various places in Slovakia. The domain of her artistic work was the creation of jewelry and plaques. The depiction of figures or abstract miniature scenes in her presentation is specific for its lyricism, which Alina found in each of her objects. She is a personality who belongs to the rather lesser known, but contemporary art history is discovering her work in a broader context and reserving for it an increasingly prominent place in the history of Slovak art.

The exhibition project "The Sun Breaks Ice" presents the work and life of Alina Ferdinanda through a preserved work of art in the context of her written legacy (personal archive). Alina was born in Košice and, although she worked in Bratislava, is an interesting research topic for the East Slovak Gallery, which opens up the possibility of connecting the gallery's regionally focused collection to the national context and talking about cultural-historical overlaps from the interwar Czechoslovakia to the period of normalization, the cultural operation of the art scene in the post-war period, as well as the formation of the first professional sculptural generation with the participation of women artists.

The exhibition concept is not composed as an art-historical retrospective of her work. The focus of the exhibition is the (relatively scattered) personal legacy (personal archive) of the artist, presenting photographic, film and written material that follows on from individual artistic realizations. Alina's personal archive preserves an extensive set of documents on her childhood, adulthood, studies and rich creative work, as well as valuable statements about her family, personal life and socio-cultural contacts. The exhibition itself and the upcoming catalogue document in more depth the specific artistic expressions, working methods and personal relationships. A cross-section of Alina Ferdinanda's artistic work in connection with her life path creates, thanks to the presentation of archival documents, an interesting and authentically rare context for approaching the sculptor's personality.

The exhibition project "The Sun Breaks the Ice" gives space to topics that, in addition to presenting Alina Ferdinanda's chamber and lyrical work against the backdrop of the drama of her life, also bring to light previously less explored aspects of Slovakia's cultural and artistic history.

The exhibition was supported by public funds from the Art Support Fund. This project was financially supported by the PROACTIVA Foundation.