1968 exhibit

1968 Prague Spring & Invasion of Czechoslovakia
Images by Jan Novotny

The Prague Spring officially began on January 5, 1968 when the reformist Alexander Dubček was elected the first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. The new leadership introduced freedoms that included loosening restric-tions on the media, speech and travel. The new government also partially decentralized the economy and started to introduce general democratization. Victims of purges during the Stalin era were rehabilitated. The Soviet Union saw the changes as a threat to their hegemony. On August 21, 1968 half a million Soviet and other Eastern Bloc troops invaded Czechoslovakia.

1989 exhibit:

1989 Velvet Revolution
Images by Tomki Němec, Vaclav Havel’s Personal Photographer

In the late 1980s, Václav Havel, a writer and dissident, was the accidental politician who spearheaded the 1989 Velvet Revolution that accomplished a peaceful fall of the communist regime. A true “philosopher king”, Havel fearlessly advocated humanitarianism, environmentalism, anti-consumerism, civil activism and direct democracy to public and world leaders alike. He received numerous recognitions and awards including the Order of Canada, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Four Freedoms Award, the Ambassador of Conscience Award and the Hanno Ellebogen Citizenship Award. He served as Czechoslovakia’s last president, and the first president of the Czech Republic.

Exhibit Locations in Edmonton, Alberta:

July 30 – August 27, 2018
Edmonton International Airport

August 29
Reception and Lecture, Derrick Golf and Winter Club, Edmonton

September 1 – 21
Edmonton City Hall

September 24 – October 7
St. Joseph High School, Edmonton

October 8 – 29
University of Alberta, Convocation Hall

Face to Face: Works on Paper From Slovakia

Pozvánka na recepciu k príležitosti otvorenia výstavy diel študentov a inštruktorov z akadémie umenia v Banskej Bystrici.

Kde: FAB Gallery (Fine Arts Building – vstup do galérie je zo 112. street, parkovisko je zo severnej strany budovy)

Kedy: Štvrtok 19, júna, 2014; 7:00pm

Bližšie informácie a RSVP nájdete na Facebook stránke: https://www.facebook.com/events/656787357709350/

Juraj Toman & Peter Valiska-Timecko

An exhibition of doctoral students and instructors from the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica

Face to Face: Works on Paper From Slovakia is a collaboration between Department of Art and Design, University of Alberta, Edmonton (Canada) and Academy of Arts, Banská Bystrica. This exhibition brings to Edmonton the work of 18 individual artists (8 instructors and 10 doctoral students) with a common interest in a particularly open aesthetic that incorporates ethical, social and political questioning. In these works on paper (paintings, drawings, prints, digital photos) we see a range and variety of topics as well as a plurality of artistic approaches and practices.

This exhibition illustrates the range of subjects that are of interest to contemporary Slovakian artists – reflections of various aspects of everyday reality, focusing on social, political and cultural problems with a further focus on identity, body, gender issues, and personal relationships; these artist are also attracted by the phenomenon of power, as well as by the infiltration of mass media and mass culture into everyday life.

Face to Face: Works on Paper From Slovakia was organized by Dr. Peter Ondruš, PhD., (Exhibition Facilitator, Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, Edmonton) and Dr. Katarína Rusnáková, Ph.D., Head of the Department of Art History and Theory, Faculty of Fine Arts, Academy of Arts, Banská Bystrica, (Curator of the exhibition, Slovakia)

Financial support for this exhibition was provided by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the University of Alberta’s Wirth institute for Austrian and Central European Studies.

Exhibition Date: June 17 – July 12, 2014
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 19 (7:00 – 10:00 pm)

Where: Fine Arts Building (FAB)

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