Independent art exhibition by Maria Gaško is open

On Thursday, August 1st 2013 in the premises of the Cultural Institute of Vojvodina’s Slovaks in Novi Sad, a retrospective exhibition of paintings by Maria Gaško was set to celebrate her 65th birthday.

The exposition, consisting of the total of 28 paintings, starting with the oldest ones from 1972 to those latest ones of 2013, has been visited by a huge number of art lovers and admirers of the work of Maria Gaško. The exhibition was also attended by the President of the Office for Slovaks Abroad, Igor Furđik and the Ambassador of the Slovak Republic in Belgrade, Jan Varšo.

The opening program of the exhibition was hosted by the Director of CIVS Milina Sklabinski, who pointed out that the exhibition was one of the accompanying cultural events of the 52nd Slovak Folk Festivities. On this occasion she expressed her immense joy because the program of the Slovak folk festival was for the third year in a row partially held in Novi Sad, and especially at the premises of the Cultural Institute of Vojvodina’s Slovaks. Those are art exhibitions of our painters. Exhibitions are typically visited by a large number of Serbian people who thus have the opportunity to hear not only about this festival, but in general about the art of Slovaks living in the area, said M. Sklabinski.. She gave the first word to Vladimir Valenćik, the curator of the exhibition, who spoke about the life and work of Maria Gaško.

The first time I came across the creations of M. Gaško as a high school student in Petrovac, where this artist worked as a professor of art and as such has enriched my knowledge of fine arts. ... M. Gaško has had a really long and fruitful creative past. During the four decades of her artistic work, she has gone through various stages, but one common characteristic persists in her paintings ... Marija Gaško is a painter of lyrical abstraction and this is a common feature of all her paintings. Only one of her artistic stages was marked by a human figure, which appears in vivid colors in her paintings in the second half of the ‘80s. This is a figure, for which we do not know where it comes from or in which direction it is going, said V. Valeník.
As usual, the Cultural Institute of Vojvodina's Slovaks took the opportunity to prepare an appropriate program. Actresses from Stara Pazova performed a scene from the play Babylon, a choreodrama by Mioslav Kožik, which, just a few days before had been ranked as the best performance at the Theatre Festival in Trebinje. The author of the music, which we had the opportunity to hear at the exhibition, was Miroslav Bako from Stara Pazova.

Okrem toho výstavu doplnilo aj hudobno-poetické pásmo: verše Jána Salčáka z najnovšej zbierky To čo sa vo mne o mňa chvie, ktoré na skladbu Für Alina skladateľa Arvo Pärta načítala Alena Pešková.

As the Cultural Institute of Vojvodina's Slovaks aims to make the art of Vojvodina's Slovaks appealing to all the nationalities living in this region, a prominent Serbian art critic Sava Stepanov was also invited to the exhibition where he spoke about the works of Maria Gaško in Serbian. Among other things, he said, that the first teachers of Gaško were Branislav Vuleković and Rajko Nikolić, of which, to this day, there is still something in these paintings. From Vuleković Maria inherited and learned a remarkable relationship with color and about the use of colors and from Nikolić relation to line, two basic elements that every good painter must have. It is true that sometimes we find the painting’s content and motive that we see most important, but the essence of a painting is based on the basic art elements such as the color and coloring, line and drawing, matter, and other materials that can be seen on a painting. On this solid basis, M. Gaško has buildt her paint work for years. It is a painting of continuity. On that occasion he also quoted Marina Abramovi, who said that the art has to be beautiful and so does the artist, adding that artist Maria Gaško meets both requirements.

The exhibition was opened by Zdenka Valent Belić, the President of the Cultural Committee of NCSNM, who pointed out that the day of the exhibition itself is very important for the National Council of the Slovak National Minority. In fact on this day the institution celebrated 10 years of existence. According to Z. V. Belić, one of the most important things NCSNM has done in the past ten years is the establishment of the Cultural Institute of Vojvodina's Slovaks. Professionalism, quality and hard work of employees at the Institute confirmed and are the true example of how we should protect, nurture, improve and present the Slovak culture. Activities of the Cultural Committee of NCSNM do not differ in any segment, these are a pair of eyes and ears of the same person, said Z. V. Belić. On this occasion she also revealed that the first prize of artistic part of NCSNM belongs to Maria Gaško.

At the end, the audience was addressed by painter Maria Gaško.

The exhibition of paintings by Maria Gaško is open for the public until the end of August 2013. Anyone interested can take a look at the Cultural Institute of Vojvodina's Slovaks (Njegoševa 16, Novi Sad), every day from 9h to 17h.

After that she will be traveling to her birthplace Kisač and to the Gallery of Zuska Medveđova in Bački Petrovac.