The quiet passion painting

This week, the latest publication of the Cultural Institute of Vojvodina's Slovaks an art monograph called Gašková by the author Sava Stepanov was published. This is the first publication from a newly created edition SlovArt, which is planned to issue similar monographs of our leading painters and artists in the future.

Gašková monograph was presented on Monday, April 20th, 2015 at the 21st International Book Salon in Novi Sad. Number present guests had an opportunity to look through the monograph and hear more about its creation and work of Mária Gašková from the publishing team.

The author of the book is a well-known art critic and a connoisseur of Vojvodina's art scene Sava Stepanov. His professional text written in three languages (Slovak, Serbian, English) and a material made out of many photographs and images introduce the life and work of this Vojvodina's Slovak artist.

On the presentation of the book Sava Stepanov said the following: Mária Gašková began painting in the early 70's and since then until today she has created a coherent artistic opus. Now is the best time to have the opportunity to see that opus all in one place. One of the specifications of Mária Gašková was a non-aggressive exhibition activity. Therefore she never rushed and never nonintrusioned her works to others. Nevertheless she was always present in new trends of Yugoslavian, Serbian, or more precisely Vojvodina Arts. She represented new phenomena on her paintings in a subtle way. So in her works there can be found paintings which appertain to the abstraction of the 70's, the new expressionistic art works from the 80's and also paintings that critically monitor the events from the 90's. Gašková acted on these events in a quiet way and therefore my text in this monograph is titled The quiet passion painting, said Sava Stepanov.

The directress of the Cultural Insitute of Vojvodina's Slovaks Milina Sklabinská presented the publishing activity of this institution and said that the publication purpose is to present the results of research work of our scientists and artists. Also she spoke about the newly edition SlovArt, which aims to present today's leading artists from the ranks of Vojvodina's Slovaks and their art work. We wish that every year CIVS publishes one monograph in this edition, said Milina Sklabiská.

The reviewer of this publication and an art critic Vladimír Valentík also mentioned this publishing step and said among other things that it is good that the Institute found strength to publish such an art book, which is a very difficult job to do, he said. With a book of this kind, our culture can be shown to the world, said Vladimir Valentik. We have rich art scene and it is a segment of our culture, which surely deserves more attention. I am very pleased that the first art monograph in new edition of the Institute is devoted to Mária Gašková, we are all proud of her and it seems that we will be even more in the future, said Vladimír Valentík.

Finally, Mária Gašková expressed her gratitude to everybody who engaged in the work. To the author, reviewers Vladimír Valentík and Bohumír Bachratý, lecturers and translators Brankica Živanović Srdić, Ljubica Jankov, Ladislav Čáni, Anna Struhárová, the designer Ljubomir Maksimov and photographer Michal Madacký and Frank Piccolo and not least the workers at the Cultural Institute of Vojvodina's Slovaks.

The directress of CIVS Milina Sklabinská gave all attendees one copy of this scarce monograph.