Festival Velenje - Velenje Gallery
History
From 1976 until 2005 it was organised as as part of the former Ivan Napotnik Cultural Centre. Today it is a separate institution, situated in a modernist building designed in 1971 by Adi Miklavc, which stands in daring contrast to adjacent buildings in the square which are just one decade older.
Exhibitions
Beside solo exhibitions of the young generation of local artists with representative in Uroš Potočnik and Barbara Jurkovšek, the Velenje Gallery features also solo exhibitions of established Slovene artists like Metka Krašovec or local artists like Željko Opačak and Stane Špegel, who prepared the exhibition inspired by local monuments in 2009 in the cooperation with Peter Marinšek and Mladen Stopnik, another representative of young establish generation of Slovene artists.
In last years gives the Gallery regularly once per year the podium to the Slovene Fine Art Critics Association (DSLK) and their annual exhibition. Each year the Gallery organises also the Velenje Artists' Colony including the exhibition of graduate students of Ljubljana Academy of Art. Its 20th anniversary exhibition in 2009 was opened by Bojan Gorenec and Nadja Gnamuš. The gallery cooperates also with students of the local grammar school.
Collection
Velenje Gallery permanent collection comprises around 700 paintings, sculptures and works on paper (prints, drawings, photography) by Slovene artists of the 20th century, with a particular focus on the youngest artists, especially those from the Šaleška and Savinjska Valleys. Since 1978 the Gallery's permanent collection of modern Slovene art (the Gorenje Collection) and paintings of well-known local painter Lojze Perko have been exhibited at Velenje Castle as part of the collections of Velenje Museum.