ŠPANIA Dolina 2010, an international symposium for painters and sculptors dedicated to Josef Langer, who created most of his paintings in this Slovak village, welcomed 15 artists from seven countries for its eighth annual edition.
For a week in mid September, the artists worked not just in this central Slovak village near Banská Bystrica but also in other nearby historical mining towns. Most artists came from Slovakia – four painters and two sculptors – but artists also arrived from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine. Each of the artists donated one of his or her new artworks to the organisers of the symposium, as is traditional.
“The artists are inspired by the landscape and by the environment and we support this by telling them about local history. This is a mining locality, and we try to send them to Banská Bystrica, Banská Štiavnica and neighbouring towns but without any specific motif so as not to limit them. Different types of art are born from the symposium but all are inspired by the locality in which they were made,” Milan Vigaš, one of the organisers, told the TASR newswire.
The art was exhibited on September 18 and 19 and interested people could make a purchase. The artists were also offered a relaxation programme over that weekend: folklore performances and cooking traditional plum marmalade in big kettles.
Josef Langer was born in Dubrovnik in 1913, worked as cartographer, and created his paintings primarily in Špania Dolina.
