Composition No. 17 by Teodor Tekel (source: Courtesy of GJK)
THE JÁN Koniarek Gallery (GJK) in Trnava has been operating without an official head for more than a year. At the end of March, a committee of the Trnava Self-Governing Region selected Ľudmila Kasaj Poláčková to fill the position, from among two candidates. However, she has still to be approved by the regional assembly, which will next gather in mid April.
The GJK has seen three competitions for the post of gallery head; in the first, the committee did not choose either of the two applicants and no-one applied in the second. The third round attracted two applicants. Kasaj Poláčková was previously curator of the Gallery of Arts of Ernest Zmeták in Nové Zámky.
In February 2011, the GJK’s then head Vladimír Beskid was recalled abruptly by the regional assembly; about 40 people demonstrated against the move by protesting in front of the regional administration, and many artists and experts expressed their dismay in writing. The president of Trnava Region, Tibor Mikuš, subsequently authorised a regional official, Jakub Slobodník, to head the gallery.
Artistic life at the GJK continues; it has organised exhibitions as well as an international competition of posters and authors’ copies that will end with an exhibition – Trienále plagátu Trnava 2012 / Trnava Poster Triennial 2012 – supported by the Icograda International Council of Associations of Graphic Design, which was set up to present modern trends in posters and graphic design to the wider public.
The last triennial, which took place in 2009, attracted 125 designer from 30 countries and 69 students from seven countries.
The current exhibition at the GJK is a jubilee exhibition of pastels, water colours, and drawings by Franciscan monk Teodor Tekel, a famous Slovak painter and graphic designer. Entitled Expresie, it commemorates the 110th birthday of Tekel, who spent the last 25 years of his life – after most monasteries were closed in communist Czechoslovakia – in Trnava. The exhibition comprises about 400 works out of a total of 2,800 contained in the collections of the GJK. It is curated by Štefan Zajíček and lasts until May 27.
More information can be found at the gallery’s website, www.gjk.sk.
