Difference between revisions of "Category:Forma Viva Collection"

A very distinctive specific of Forma Viva is its focus on the specific materials used at any particular site. They are bound to have have some sort of a connection to the region, with all four running a long-term continuity.

Brief history

The first two symposia started in 1961, the first one in Seča near Portorož (working exclusivekly with stone) and the other in Kostanjevica na Krki (here wood has been used ever since). Later, two other venues were included: Ravne na Koroškem (1964, steel) and Maribor (1967, reinforced concrete). Other locations proposed during that time were Jesenice (iron), Ptuj (aluminium or umetne mase) and Radenci (clay).

At first, the founders held annual symposia in both Portoroz and Kostanjevica but, for economic reasons, this had to be curtailed after a few years. Portorož and Kostanjevica started to hold the symposia alternately, each every two years. The Maribor symposium happened a bit more sporadically until 1986 (when it stopped and hasn't been revived as of yet), while the Ravne one lasted till 1989 and got resurrected in 2008. Between 1988 and 1998 there was no co-ordination between the symposia in Seca and those in Kostanjevica. The year 1991 marked an end of an era as Seča remained the only one of the four that maintained continuity, though on a biennial nature. Recent years have seen a resurgence of Forma Viva activities, though they still haven't retained its former ambitiousness.

In the past decades a few other Forma Viva's has risen, most notably in zrece and Makole. They were done independently as compared to the initial four, which share a overarching organisational entity. The Zrece Forma Viva began to take shape in mid-1970s and and the collection was growing until 1989. It is a result of cooperation between the artist Vasilij Cetkovic and Marjan Osole, who was the managing director of the tools company Unior at that time. Built on the the blacksmith tradition of the area, they created eight pieces made from iron, steel and artificial grindstones. The sculptures were all made from materials available locally.

The works

Each of these collections is based on a particular material, distinctive for the area. In accordance with the natural resources of individual sites, the symposium in Kostanjevica na Krki focuses on sculpting oak wood (there is only one piece made of some other material, yet set in a living tree), Seca near Portorož on the hard and resistant bright Istrian limestone (among other things it is used for the fountains in Venice), Ravne na Koroškem on metal (where the steel making plant intiated and finaced the project), and Maribor on reinforced concrete (which corresponded with the burgeoning building of concrete neighbourhoods).

The materials also correspond to the spatial logics, with the stone and wooden collections comprising a more traditional exhibitions and the concrete and steel ones being integrated into the urban fabric. More then 100 sculptures are on display in natural environment nearby art museum/former cistercian monastery in Kostanjevica na Krki (with some pieces, like the constructivist sculpture by Vjenceslav Richter (HR), also set at various rad junctures in the area). From their symposia, the curators of the Coastal Galleries at Piran, who are in charge of the park, collected over 300 pieces of sculpture for the park at Portorož alone. These are now distributed around the several parks on the Slovenian coast, as originally planned over fifty years ago. Also,

As the collections are now quite old and mostly rather monumental, they demanded extensive renovating tecniques to be developed. In 2005, the Koroška Regional Museum started to gradually renovate all of the pieces.

Impact

Besides serving as notable landmarks, Forma Viva has also been an important way of penetration of contemporary art into the wider community. Works were done with the cooperation of local craftsman and – in the case of Ravne – the workers in the local iron factory. The working sites were also freely accessible and often, especially in the early decades, they were the only time when local people met foreigners, especially the ones coming from such faraway countries as Japan (worth mentioning is that Japanese artists represented the biggest part of the artists invited).

At the same time this international symposium was very important for the development of sculptor-ship in Slovenia, bringing contemporary modelling principles amongst the artistic communities. Besides the Biennial of Graphic Arts and Biennial of Design (BIO) this has been among the most important institutions of Slovene visual arts.

External links

• Forma Viva Open Air Wood Sculpture Collection in Kostanjevica na Krki website (in Slovenian)
• Forma Viva, Ravne na Koroškem website (in Slovenian)
• Forma Viva Open Air Stone Sculpture Collection, Seca website (in Slovenian)
• Forma Viva Maribor on the Maribor Art Gallery website
• A webpage on the Zreče Forma Viva
• A map of the Maribor Forma Viva pieces
• An old video describing Forma Viva
• An article on Forma Viva (in Slovenian)
• An extensive history of Forma Viva
• http://casopis-start.si/arhiv/start-2/restart/ursa-pajk-50-let-simpozija-forma-viva-ali-zive-kiparske-dejavnosti/
• A graduation thesis about the history of Forma Viva