Talum Art Collection
Profile
The first acquisitions of the Talum Art Collection established in 1991 were the results of artist colonies of local painters which gathered for the first time in 1991 at Štatenberg Castle. After the artist colonies were discontinued in 2003, the collection has since continued collecting art in the form of acquisition by purchase.
In the beginning the Talum Collection focused basically on collecting paintings from the artists connected with Ptuj and its surroundings (Dušan Fišer, Dušan Kirbiš, Tomaž Plavec, Viktor Rebernak). In 2002 photographers gathered in Ptuj and the pictures they took of the factory buildings at Kidričevo were added to the collection – like the work of Stojan Kerbler, a great name in Slovene photography who was employed at the aluminium factory up to his retirement in 2000. Recently, acquisitions have started to focus more and more on national artists and additionally purchased graphics and sculptures. In 2008 the sculptures of the Slovene group Wild in Heart and graphics of Božidar Jakac and Riko Debenjak were acquired. The collection also comprises works of established Slovene artists like Irwin, Metka Kraševec, Jožef Muhovič, Janez Bernik, Andrej Jemec, etc.
Faced with the recent economic crisis Talum has temporarily stopped investing in the collection with the hope to continue activity soon.
Location
The collection is exhibited in the main building of Talum aluminium company in Kidričevo, which in 2005 was renovated by the architect Janko J. Zadravec, who kept all modernistic elements of the edifice built in the mid-1940s by the architect Danilo Fürst. The entance hall of the building is known as the gallery of the Talum Art Collection, where usually the most recent acquisitions are on view. Other art works purchased by Talum have exceeded the basic intention of the collection – namely to enhance the working environment in the Kidričevo administration building.
In 2002, by strict selection and with an accompanying catalogue including a list of all the works gathered to date, the Talum Art collection was presented to the public in the Jakopič Gallery in Ljubljana.