Bang?! Bang! 2

The exhibition also features artists whose work employs somewhat surprising techniques – notably the now almost forgotten Art Protis that was popular on the Slovak and Czech art scenes from the late 1950s through to the 1980s. This is exemplified by the work of the remarkably versatile artist Vladimír Popovič.

While the first edition of Bang! Bang?! emphasised, amongst others, the sculptor Jozef Jankovič, in this continuation we wish to highlight his equally remarkable post-surrealist sculptural contemporaries such as Dušan Králik and the untimely deceased Ivan Štěpán. We would also like to mention the conceptual multi-artist Peter Rónai, who created a purpose-built installation for the exhibition.

Posters form an important aspect of creative work, primarily for various art events. Through an inventive graphic approach, they subtly, yet significantly, create the visual atmosphere of an era. This is evident here not only in placards by the informel and at the same time poetically geometric artist Marián Čunderlík, but also within Vladislav Rostoka’s later visual works.

Bang?! Bang! 2 applies a certain principle of contrast by bringing together artists from each end of the visual spectrum, acknowledging that within the context of their time they created and exhibited side by side and, so to speak, overlapped. This exhibition also aims to indicate what a collection display of art from the 1960s to the present might, and indeed should, look like at an institution such as the Slovak National Gallery.

Martin Dostál