Czech and Slovak Artists Reunite in New York Exhibition After Years of Separation
On February 1, 2001, 'The New Connection' exhibition was inaugurated at the World Financial Center in New York City, under the curation of Lubomira Slusna. This showcase included twenty artists, with an equal representation of ten from the Czech Republic and ten from Slovakia, as part of the month-long festival 'Celebrate Slovakia: Art from the Heart of Europe.' Each artist had earned notable accolades, such as the Chalupecki Award or the TONAL Award. Taking place over seven years post the 1993 separation of Czechoslovakia, the event aimed to bridge artistic communities. Simultaneously, efforts were underway to reunify the Czechoslovak pavilion at the Venice Biennale, although the exhibition encountered difficulties in cohesion and visibility while promoting dialogue between the two nations.
Key facts
- The exhibition 'The New Connection' opened on February 1, 2001 at the World Financial Center in New York City.
- It featured twenty artists: ten from the Czech Republic and ten from Slovakia.
- All artists had won either the Chalupecki Award (Czech Republic) or the TONAL Award (Slovakia) for artists under thirty-five.
- The exhibition was curated by Lubomira Slusna and part of the 'Celebrate Slovakia: Art from the Heart of Europe' festival.
- It occurred over seven years after Czechoslovakia split into two independent countries in 1993.
- The Czechoslovak pavilion at the Venice Biennale was being reunified in 2001 after eight years of division by a wall.
- A collaborative project by Jiri Suruvka and Ilona Nemeth, curated by Katarina Rusnakova, occupied the reunified pavilion.
- The exhibition aimed to survey recent Czech and Slovak art but faced critiques for lacking conceptual cohesion.
Entities
Artists
- Martina Pachmanová
- Lubomira Slusna
- Jiri Cernicki
- Anton Cierny
- Michal Gabriel
- Vanesa Hardi
- Robo Kocan
- Vladimir Kokolia
- Patrik Kovacovski
- Marek Kvetan
- Martin Mainer
- Ilona Nemeth
- Michal Nesazal
- Petr Nikl
- Petr Ondrusek
- Jiri Prihoda
- Lukas Rittstein
- Dorota Sadovski
- Frantisek Skala
- Emoeke Vargova
- Katerina Vincourova
- Dusan Zahoranski
- Jiri Suruvka
- Katarina Rusnakova
Institutions
- World Financial Center
- Venice Biennale
- ARTMargins Online
Locations
- New York City
- United States
- Czech Republic
- Slovakia
- Prague
- Venice
- Italy
- Giardini Garden
- Valdstein Palace