Maribor Art Gallery

With its collection of more than 3,000 art works by Slovene artist from the end of the 19th century up to present, the Maribor Art Gallery (Umetnostna galerija Maribor (UGM)) is one of the main museums for modern and contemporary art in Slovenia. Painting, sculpture and prints are joined by photographs, video art, multimedia installations and interactive art projects. UGM serves as a regional museum of modern and contemporary art in the area of the Municipality of Maribor, its founder, as well as in the greater area of North-Eastern Slovenia. The museum runs also the Rotovž Exhibition Salon and manages the Forma Viva Open Air Sculpture Collection in the City Park.

The construction of a New Maribor Art Gallery is one of the pillars in the Maribor, European Capital of Culture 2012 project. The international competition was won by the Hungarian architects Tamás Lévai in Ágnes Jószai. The works are due to begin in February 2011.

History and venues

By establishing the Maribor Art Gallery in 1954 as the first professional institution in the field of fine arts the town became again a relatively important centre of artistic and cultural development that goes back to the tradition of the Grohar Art Club, which was established in the 1920s and had a pioneering role in organised art life in Maribor. By moving into the building on the corner of Strossmayerjeva and Orožnova ulica, UGM acquired about 800 square metres of exhibition space, including the representative Knights' Hall and Pillar Hall. The main exhibition venues are located in the former manor house built in the first half of 19th century and the former church of Celestine monastery from the second half of 18th century.

By joining with the Rotovž Exhibition Salon in the 1980s, UGM acquired Department for Contemporary Art and additional space for presentation of contemporary visual art in the very centre of the town.

Programme

With its collection and the programme of approximately 20 exhibitions and events annualy – ranging from retrospective reviews of works by Slovene artists, through solo and group presentations of visual and new media artists to international festivals of contemporary art as well as architecture and design exhibitions – UGM importantly shapes both the art scene in Slovenia, regionally and internationally. The most important international event is the International Triennial Ecology and Art, organised by the Maribor Art Gallery since 1980. The museum collaborates also with other local organisers. In 2010, for example, it hosted the exhibition Twenty-six million minutes latter. New Tendencies, from the Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb in the framework of the International Festival of Computer Arts (IFCA).

Collection

The collection contains works by major authors of modern and contemporary art, particularly by those from Styria (Štajerska region), Corinthia (Koroška region) and East Slovenia (Prekmurje region). Since 1999 UGM has held the first collection of video art in Slovenia. The collection of UGM comprising mainly works acquired through a systematic purchase policy, plus donations and legacies and also a small number of works of art transferred from Maribor Regional Museum.

Paintings and sculptures

The collection of paintings comprise major historical styles of fine arts of the 20th century and represent the core part of the permanent collection of UGM (about the third of all the works). Sculpture is represented by Slovenian authors' art works created after 1945. The features of the UGM collection are complete opuses of selected authors from North-Eastern Slovenia, mostly by those belonging to older generations, such as Janez Šibila, Maks Kavčič, Oton Polak and Zmago Jeraj, and focus on certain art movements, especially Slovenian Expressionism and New Objectivity: the collection for instance contains a few excellent works by Tone Kralj and France Kralj, Ivan Kos and Fran Stiplovšek. The sculpture collection comprises opuses by sculptor Slavko Tihec and painter Rudolf Kotnik, the pioneers and leading figures of Slovenian abstract art of the early 1960s, as well as production of younger authors in the recent decades. Representatives of the latter in the UGM collection are some excellent artists based in Maribor, such as Oto Rimele and Darko Golija, as well as several Slovenian artists who belong to the younger and middle generation, such as Jurij Kalan, Marko Jakše, Zdenka Žido and others. The collection attracts also international attention with the works of Zoran Mušič, an internationally acclaimed Slovenian painter who spent his youth and early creative years in Maribor.

Prints and drawings

Printmaking, drawing and other works on paper form a substantial part of the UGM collection; like paintings, these works are following the main styles of history of art. The character of this part of the collection varied and includes works which accompany paintings or sculptures as sketches or studies as well as art works which have independently formed their own artistic expression and message. Works on paper have been created by using different classic and experimental techniques and represent an interesting study material. The collection of prints includes works by all major Slovenian artists; among those particularly interesting are Lojze Šušmelj's opus from the late 1960s, Bojan Golija's cycle of prints from the late 1950s that was inspired by Japanese prints, excellent works by the so-called Ljubljana printmaking school, works by Bogdan Borčič, leading Slovenian printmaker of the older generation, as well as works by one of the most prominent printmakers of the younger generation, Samuel Grajfoner

Photography

Systematic photography collection only began in 2002 and was expanded in 2009 with 140 photographs by the members of the Maribor circle, and with a donation of more than 900 photographs by the Maribor-based photographer Janko Andrej Jelnikar. The collection has been compiled almost exclusively with donations. Today it comprises over 1.000 works. Priority is given to the works produced after 1960, when photography in Slovenia became a self-reliant and independent artistic medium. This was also the time when some Maribor-based photographers were acclaimed authors also in the wider area of the former Yugoslavia. The central part of the collection consists of works by members of the so-called Maribor circle, in the forefront being especially the authors Zmago Jeraj, Ivan Dvoršak, Janko Andrej Jelnikar and Branko Jerneić. There are also acquisitions of works by younger authors who have established themselves through photography, among them Aleksandra Vajd.

Video and new media

In 1999 UGM began to collected works by Slovenian video artists. The UGM Video Art Collection comprise the historical review of Slovenian video art from the 1960s to present time. It includes works by 25 most important Slovenian authors like works by pioneers of Slovenian video art from the 1960s and 70s (such as Nuša Dragan & Srečo Dragan, Miha Vipotnik), the most important artists of the 1980s and 90s, the period when this medium established itself as an independent and equal medium of artistic creativity (among them Marina Gržinić & Aina Šmid, Marko Kovačič, Andrej Lupinc, Nataša Prosenc, Zemira Alajbegović Pečovnik & Neven Korda, Andrej Zdravič, Jasna Hribernik, Franc Purg, Ema Kugler are presented) as well as contemporary production of recent 15 years when the medium passed the tests of numerous new uses and adjustments within the complex life of contemporary art works (such as Vuk Čosić, Igor Štromajer, Davide Grassi/Janez Janša, Apolonija Šušteršič, Damijan Kracina & Vladimir Leben, Žiga Kariž, son:DA).

The new UGM

Within the Maribor, European Capital of Culture 2012 project one of first steps the Maribor Art Gallery did was the International Architecture Competition for the New Maribor Art Gallery (UGM), prepared in collaboration with the Architects' Society of Maribor and Chamber of Architecture and Spatial Planning of Slovenia (ZAPS). The project of the new museum on 14,800 m2 includes also the rejuvenation of the river Drava embankments, and the new foot bridge, adjacent to the historic Old Bridge. The international jury (Christoph Grunenberg, director of Tate Liverpool, and architects Peter L. Wilson (AUS), Jürgen Hermann Mayer (GER), Hrvoje Njirić (CRO), Stojan Skalicky, Matevž Čelik, Marko Studen) selected the proposal by Hungarian architects Tamás Lévai in Ágnes Jószai.

External Links

Maribor Art Gallery

Contents

History and venues

Programme

Collection

The new UGM

See also

External Links

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