The festival season is not near, but in case you would want to discover Slovak music, you can watch the country’s only music awards show, Radio_Head Awards, this weekend.
You may discover an artist or a song you will end up listening to all weekend long. Here are the nominees and categories.
On another note, the globe marked World Water Day on March 22. It is focused on groundwater in 2022, which is why we are going to start off this week’s Spectacular Slovakia Roundup with a water-related story and this painting.
"Large Landscape with a River. Bathing" (1875-85) by Ladislav Mednyánszky is owned by the Slovak National Gallery. (Source: webumenia.sk)TRAVEL
Birds will come to Medzibodrožie
Earlier in the week, ornithologists from SOS/Bird Life Slovakia returned to Medzibodrožie, a protected bird area in eastern Slovakia, after a year to start irrigating wetlands again.
Ornithologists plan to flood 10 hectares of wetlands. Without this activity, many bird species would otherwise vanish from the area.
Colonies of different birds have formed in Medzibodrožie over the years, including the black-crowned night heron and the great bittern. “Last year, the pygmy cormorant nested there for the first time,” Matej Repel from SOS/Bird Life Slovakia told the TASR newswire. The cattle egret also chose the locality to nest there for the first time in Slovakia, he added.
The tradition of flooding five isolated wetlands between the towns of Somotor and Strážne began in 2013. “We pump water from the Somotor Canal and the southern Radský Canal,” the ornithologist said. It will take two weeks to flood the wetlands, which is the time when first heron species should start arriving.
Medzibodrožie, eastern Slovakia, has been a protected bird area since 2008. (Source: Miloš Balla)The Medzibodrožie area, which spreads out in between the Trebišov and Michalovce districts, was declared a protected area in 2008.
Travel in short:
- A new cycling bridge over the River Morava will open on May 7.
- Slovak Karst, a national park in eastern Slovakia, celebrates 20 years since its establishment.
- How did Bojnice Castle become a fairy-tale place?
- Listen to the Spectator College podcast. The latest episode is devoted to ecotourism and the Vlčie Hory project in eastern Slovakia.
- A Polish tree has been named the European Tree of 2022. Slovakia’s tree came fifth.
ART
Warhol’s Marilyn to sell at auction
Andy Warhol’s iconic portrait of Marilyn Monroe, “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn”, could become the most expensive 20th century artwork to be ever sold at auction.
It is estimated to sell for up to $200 million in May.
“Andy Warhol’s Marilyn is the absolute pinnacle of American Pop and the promise of the American Dream encapsulating optimism, fragility, celebrity and iconography all at once,” said Alex Rotter from Christie’s, an auction house. Warhol’s Marilyn is categorically one of the greatest paintings of all time, he added.
"Shot Sage Blue Marilyn" was painted by Andy Warhol in 1964. (Source: Christie's)Warhol, whose parents came to the USA from what is today eastern Slovakia, began to work on silkscreens of Monroe after her death in August 1962. He first created reproductions of her visage multiple times in bright colors. Two years later, he developed a more refined and time-intensive screen-printing technique and created a limited number of portraits of the Hollywood legend.
“This technique was so difficult in fact, that he never returned to it again and yet the image remains burnt in the visual lexicon of art history,” Christie’s said.
Christie’s obtained the painting from the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation Zurich, which will benefit from the sale. The foundation helps improve the lives of children around the world.
OTHER CULTURE NEWS
Festival: The hip hop legend Grand Master will perform at Pohoda 2022.
Church: A renovated church in Zborov, near the Polish border, will become a cultural hub.
Museum: A museum that celebrates the 1517 Reformation opened in Bratislava.
EVENTS IN BRATISLAVA
170 years ago
Would you like to possess a historical portrait of yourself?
Visitors to the Slovak National Museum in Bratislava will get acquainted with the beginnings of photography on Sunday, March 27.
The "Ignác Schächtl and the Šechtls – From the Collodium Process to Digital (1865 – 2021)" exhibition is run by the Slovak National Museum in Bratislava until late May. (Source: Slovak National Museum)Tomáš Schiller (Aeternus Pictures) will take them to the year of 1851 when the wet collodion process, early photographic technique, was invented by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer.
The event, which starts at 15:00 at Café Múzeum, will be held as part of the “Ignác Schächtl and the Šechtls – From the Collodium Process to Digital (1865 – 2021)” exhibition.
The Šechtl family has been in the photography trade for over 150 years. In the past, their studio was one of the most famous in Czechoslovakia
The display runs until May 22. However, it will not be open on March 25, 26 and 29, as the national museum informs on its website.
What else is on in Bratislava:
- A charity opera concert will be held on March 25 in Bratislava to raise funds for Človek v Ohrození, which helps people affected by the war in Ukraine.
- Radio_Head Awards will take place on March 25 and 26. Watch it online.
- Konvergencie, the international chamber music festival, takes places in Bratislava until March 27.
WEEKEND READ
What if everything in life has a purpose?
When 17-year-old Marina Čarnogurská, having finished as a top student at one of the best schools in Bratislava in 1957, was told that she was not allowed to go to university, she burst into tears.
Her dream had been to study Bengali, but her father Pavol’s opposition to the communist regime in power meant she was denied the chance to further her education.
Marina Čarnogurská sitting next to the pile of her published works. (Source: Jana Gombošová)The ban on going to university was far from the only painful twist in her life, but looking back as she speaks to The Slovak Spectator at her home in Bratislava, she describes everything that has happened to her as being a single stream of energy guiding her to become a successful sinologist, a translator of Chinese philosophy and fiction, a writer of scientific works, and bringing about a meeting with her second husband.
“Everything in my life has had a purpose,” the prominent Slovak sinologist, 81, says.
One more read: Wandering Sculptures of Bratislava.
That is it. Join me next Friday again. Have a restful weekend! - Peter
Do you have any tips? You can reach Peter at peter.dlhopolec@spectator.sk
